


by sun and candle-light

by vegetas



Category: Versailles (TV 2015)
Genre: F/M, References to Canon, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 15:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 64,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14288109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegetas/pseuds/vegetas
Summary: fabien marchal has become prisoner to change: his hair has grayed, his body has slowed, and his life is hermitous, to say the least. far from the humming pulse of Versailles, he finds there is only one great mystery left; one which has haunted his every step for three years without ceasing: the fate of sophie de clermont.





	1. le prologue

 

*

 

 _How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made_ _  
_ _By looking on thee in the living day,_ _  
_ _When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade_ _  
_ _Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!_ _  
_      _All days are nights to see till I see thee,  
_ _And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me._

 

Sonnet 43 | William Shakespeare | 1609

 

*

 

Sometimes, like when standing under the rose arbor late in the day, she believed it had all been one long dream.

Not an ordinary dream, but the sort of decadent dreaming one did in the old stories of her girlhood. The ones she carried close to her heart when she did not have anything else to carry with her.

 _La fantasie_.

The deep, enchanted dreaming of golden palaces, and sun kings and four horse carriages; all manner of amazing, glorious things both beautiful and terrible. Dreams that, like a life, could be choked with grief and sadness, that ventured into dark places - dungeons and stone staircases and briar thorns. 

But, standing under the rose arbor when it is pink and still, she thinks: _It is one thing to make yourself out to be a poor girl in a glass coffin, and it’s another to see someone peering back at you through it._ What a grotesque sight to see: a girl trapped in a glass coffin. Not just anyone would venture so near such a cursed thing. _What a shame_ , they might say, looking down. _She is no reward._

Was it his face in the silver crystalline light? Could she make out the shape of him even before he became clearer? Was he so familiar that she knew him by his shadow - the blur of his outline? She closes her eyes, bathing in the scent of roses, and can see his hand lift the lid and her arms burst up like flowers to wrap around him. Her heart races with relief to be awake. 

She knew it was him, all along. 

She could hear him calling her name in the long lonely maze of sleep - as clear as he calls now, from the open door which leads to the garden. 


	2. une

 

i

 

*

 

At first the old man swore he was still asleep, taking several long moments before finally sitting up and trying to identify the noise that had stirred him. It was not, as he had initially believed,  the booming cannon fire of his youth, nor was it the strike of a hammer into a wheel axle, which was the most familiar sound in the world to him. He was a cart maker, and his father had been a cart maker before him, and all his life he had been bent over, banging on wheels and axles with a large hammer that made his ears ring as they were currently.

Unlike his father, eventually he had been able to hire workers to make carts using his designs - the best designed carts in Burgundy - and from this living he’d amassed a very comfortable fortune and a comfortable house with a comfortable, if not a bit nagging, marriage. He was not used to being roused in the middle of the night by strange sounds, especially those so inharmonious and unfamiliar.  

His wrinkled, deafened, ears strained in the night and he felt around stupidly on the coverlet. The sound came again, over a slight moan of wind, and his wife stirred beside him.  

“ _Qu'Est-ce que c'est?_ ” she slurred. What is it?

“Shh,” he hissed, gnarled finger to his drooping mouth.

“It is only thunder,” she heaved in irritation, rolling onto her side.

Not even a second later she bolted upright, looking at him in the dark.

His finger lowered back to the covers and he began the slow task of easing his arthritic frame from the mattress, feet skittering for his slippers.

“Your robe -,” she gasped, leaping from the bed. She pulled the garment from the armoire, helping him hastily dress.

“Off with you,” he rasped, waving her from him as he tied the belt. “See if you can’t tell who it is...”

She flew to the window, pressing her round face against it in a struggle to see, tho the glass was fogged and there was little moonlight, only streaks of falling silver from the rain.

The old man’s palsied hands quivered as he hurried to light the candle on the night table, snapping several matches in half and dropping a dozen more while someone hammered on their front door. From the window his wife hurriedly told him that the front gate was open.

“Who could it _be_?” his wife whispered, turning to him. She took the matches from him, lighting one in one smooth stroke, and then the candle. “A debt collector? Have you been betting on horses? Losing at cards?”

“Nonsense, silly woman,” he barked, watching the candlelight paint shadows on her comely face. “A courrier. Perhaps my sister has died,” he wheezed, coughing into his fist, waving away the candle smoke. His head shook side to side as he dizzily considered the notion. His dear sister all the way in Lyonnais, four years older than his stout sixty years, having remained on the earth despite all calamity, finally succumbing.  Would her son send such a message this way? Perhaps - Manu was always one for theatrics...

“Oh,” the wife swooned when the hideous banging began again, crossing herself hurriedly. Together they crept into the hall and timid as children descended the stairs one step at a time. At the bottom the man motioned that it was better that she stay behind, till he could report whatever news there was and it was there he left his wife, clinging to the railing, clutching it tightly as a seasick sailor.

The whole first floor seemed to shudder with the force of the fist slamming on the door. The cook peeked from the kitchen door, the front of her dress sooted from where she fell asleep too close to the fire after indulging too much wine. She watched her old master’s thin back shake with another cough. He had swallowed much sawdust in his time as a cart maker, and it had left him with a croup for as long as she had known him.

“ _Qui va la!_ ” the old man hacked, and with a soft _snap_ he turned the lock and swung the door open with a gust of cold autumn wind that rippled the hem of his skirt.  

The man looming there on the doorstep was bent from the rain slicking the road and his riding cloak. Behind him, the bobbing lantern hanging from the gate post caught the sheen of an impressively big black horse, black as the deep night, and the great clouding breathes it huffed into the cool air.

Decidedly _not_ a courier, the man thought with a mixture of fear and relief.

“You heard me!” the old man went on, stern, his feeble eyes mapping out the rough cast of the figure before him. “Name yourself!”

The night rider leaned forward, into the house, into the candle light, and pushed his hood  from around his head.

Dark wet hair stuck to his face, which, in daylight, was considered handsome if not sharp featured. A beaky, inquisitive, nose and two black eyes shining out from a heavy brow and high, intelligent, forehead. Between the bony swell of his cheeks and the taught line of his chin, however, his mouth was soft and mild despite being drawn into a blank line of annoyance.

“Are you Monsieur Caron?” his voice slithered from his throat like a serpent, cool and unhurried, as though he was merely keeping an appointment with the startled old fool before him and not jumping him out of bed in the dead of night.

The old man, Monsieur Caron, nodded slowly up and down. At a more suitable time he would be more discerning, but in his addled state he was obliged to answer.

“ _Oui_ ,” he replied, voice quivering slightly. “I am Theo Caron - master of this house.”

The stranger didn’t blink. He placidly stood in the doorway, rain spraying at his back. The light from the candle cast upwards, giving him the ghastly appearance of a spector.

“Monsieur Caron, you are harboring a criminal - a thief - this very night.”

“Theodore,” his wife cried from the stairs. “What does he mean?”

“I mean,” the man said, looking over the man’s hunched shoulder into the dark house, hawkish eyes meeting those of the woman on the staircase. “That there is a fugitive in this house, one that I have been tracking for some time.”

“Absurd!” Caron said brusquely, leaning into the stranger’s view. The candle waved gruesomely back and forth in the man’s grim face. “You will find no evidence of any such activity! Any neighbor, or friend, would vouch-!”

The man made a sound of displeasure and shoved roughly past Caron, nearly knocking him back into a wall.  His wet clothes smeared the shoulder of the old man’s robe and the candle tipped dangerously close to him, wax, mud, and rain water being cast on the carpet. His wife rocked back, almost collapsing over the banister of the staircase where she was perched at the intrusion.

The man whipped impatiently to them, the door squealing slowly shut in the suck of the wind outside. He reached into the interior of his cloak, pulling a bundle of papers that were concealed within a leather wallet to protect them from the rain, gloved hands filing through them rapidly. His hair dripped continuously, drops of water slipping from his forehead and down his nose, collecting in clumps on his eyelashes which he barely blinked away.

Caron’s wife could see that the quality of his clothing was fine - very fine - even in the dark and even with it being so soggy. His cloak alone could fetch a sum, from the weave and weight. Under the hood she glanced the white linen of his cravat and a sliver of his vest - the slight brocading there. His hair, too, was neat despite the downpour, well-cut and cared for. She glanced to her husband who was swaying on his feet in the middle of the foyer, bewildered. This seemed no general ruffian nor brutish enforcer. He seemed more a nobleman than either of those by his demeanor and elegant accent. 

After a moment the man thrust out a paper and Monsieur Caron gently took it, bringing it close to him in the light of the candle. He squinted, struggling to read the fine script in the poor light. His mouth formed the words as he read them, making garish faces.

“My credentials,” the man said flatly. Caron scanned the document and his eyebrows inched higher and higher towards his nearly non-existent hairline. The man’s eyes never strayed from Caron as he read. “I believe you will find them sufficient.”

“ _Mon dieu -_ _du Roi_ ,” Caron bleated, looking up at the stranger, the remains of his blush evaporating, leaving him white and stricken. His throat bobbed.  His wife clutched the edges of her shawl against her heart.

“I would advise you do not lie to me,” the man - _Marchal_ \- said, pulling the paper back from Caron’s weak hand. “I have been observing the goings-ons of this house for two days and have confirmed my suspicions.”

“Yes,” Caron gaped. “Yes, we will talk, whatever it is -”

“There is a girl here, under your employ,” Marchal said, cutting him off. “She has been using the alias of Dieudonne Martin. According to my sources she arrived two winters ago, requesting a job as a maid.”

“Y-yes,” Caron said, breathless.

“So you admit, you know this woman,” Marchal’s eyes narrowed, but he did not advance.

“S-she is a maid, yes, yes, two winters ago, but now - Doudou would not, she would not be a thief, she is my wife’s companion -,” Marchal watched the old man grapple with the news. “We lost our daughter, and she has become - it’s as if…” He lost his words in a struggling coughing fit.

“Three years ago she escaped from the palace at Versailles, absconding with something of great value. It is my duty to the King of France to restore both it, and her, and see that justice prevails.”

“No,” the wife cried.  “Theo, it cannot be - it cannot be her. Please!” She turned her desolate sights on Marchal, reaching out as if to touch his cloak. “Sir, she is a good girl -!”

“Obstruction of justice is considered treason,” Marchal remarked, staring at Caron and moving his cloak closer to his body, away from her desperate hand. “Which, I am sure I do not need to indicate the consequences of. You are already considered in collusion. I would not do anything more to further your own guilt.”

Caron reeled, still wheezing.

“What did she steal?” he asked.

“Confidential,” the inspector replied, eyes cold as slate.

His wife slid to the bottom step, her face in her hands to hold a wail.

“Where is her room,” Marchal said and Caron blinked at him, incapacitated.

His eyes were trained on his wife, his expression dismayed. He pointed vaguely up, to the second floor.

Marchal went to the staircase, stepping around the woman huddled on the steps as though she was not there. As he ascended he began to pull his gloves from his hands, tucking them into his belt. He could hear the old couple speaking to each other below, and he paused for a moment to listen once he reached the landing. They made little sense, their words jilted and distracted.

It was precisely why he had selected such a night to put his plan in motion. The weather, the hour, these factors would overwhelm whatever the old couple recollected, steeping their memories in confusion, and it appeared to already be working.

He tried several doors on the second floor, leading him to small sitting rooms and two bedrooms, all empty. Finally, his hand closed around the handle to a door near the end of the hallway. The rain had slowed, and clouds had parted enough to let thin fingers of moonlight edge into the room through the window. Immediately he was enveloped in a soft, powdery scent and a shyer fragrance. Rose water. Dust.

He did not need a light to know it was her sleeping in the bed against the wall. Even without logic dictating him he knew it was her that his eyes fell upon. It was in the barely discernible slope of her shoulder under the duvet, the coil of her braid over the silken pillowcase and the satin ribbon holding the end; the hush of her deep, unbroken sleep.

Fabien gazed around the room, the accoutrement: a petticoat sprawled over a bare wooden chair, a pair of slippers, a bow. The dressing table and the stand with the basin and pitcher. He recalled Caron’s words - that they had lost a daughter and he wondered if the objects had belonged to her, long ago. He touched a comb, inspected a pearl earring. Artifacts of another life.

He turned again to the bed. How foolish and vulnerable she was, able to sleep peacefully through such a storm, her back to the door. It would take nothing - _nothing_ \- for an intruder such as him to overtake her in that state.

He went to her, reaching to grab where he felt her arm was, pulling so she rolled towards  him. Her heart-shaped face turned on the pillow, clear and white as _camelia japonica_ and as familiar as the day he had last seen it. He seized her chin in his hand, tilting it up and her lips dropped open in a sigh,  eyes moving slightly beneath her lids.

Her brow twitched, and her lips curled indignantly, lashes sluggishly lifting.

“Good evening Mademoiselle -,” he began, only to stop short.  Her hand came up from the blankets to his own, holding his arm.

“Fabien?” she whispered, voice heavy and stilted, and he stared down at her, a furrow coming between his brows. It was not the sort of reaction he’d been anticipating.

“I’m dreaming,” she murmured. Whatever speech he had prepared for this moment was lost on him as she looked up at what she could barely see outlined against the window in her small room, piecing his image together. “I’m dreaming,” she said again, softer still, and Fabien froze in place. She had turned her face into his palm, her mouth grazing the heel of his hand. Her fingers slid up to cover his, slotting between them, holding it to her cheek.

“You’re so cold,” she said, frowning, her hand falling sleepily down to his wrist. She squinted up at his face, calculating. Her head tilted, and she blinked slowly, considering something about his countenance.

“Your hair is silver,” she said, reaching out to touch the threads of gray that had been steadily advancing through his waves. In one fluid motion he snatched her arm from the air.

Now she gasped, her eyes becoming wider, rounding with shock. Her mouth trembled.

“Do you take me for a fool?” he said, regaining some sense and peering down at her, squeezing her wrist.

She sank back against the pillow in surprise.

“I have been looking for you, Sophie,” his voice was low and even and realization bloomed across her face. He supposed she had not heard that name in quite some time judging by the expression.

He released her arm, leaving it hovering in the dark like a white lily. “Get up and dress yourself,” he ordered, turning from the bed. “Pack lightly - essentials. You will not need much where we are going.”

She stayed still on the bed, still lying there, her eyes now at the ceiling, looking, or pleading, for answers.

“Mademoiselle De Clermont,” he said, waiting.

He heard the creak of her bed and the brush of bedding being pushed off of her body. There was a fumble, a small clatter, and he looked only to see her lighting a candelabra. The glow filled the room and he could see her, truly, now. She looked at him with a strange and wondering stare.

A tendril of hair hung over her face, nearly caught on her lip.

“You are real,” she said to his back when he had turned away from her once more.

“Very,” was his reply.

 

* * *

 

He left her to her own devices to dress, waiting outside her room till she called him back in. In the meantime he let his head rest against the wall, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

His cloak was beginning to grow musty from the rain and his hair was drying in snarls that would be a pain to untangle once he had a moment, but it was not the worst state he had ever been in. Beneath him, on the first floor, the fire had been set and he could no longer hear hear low talking or hideous weeping, the Caron’s having settled into a kind of daze.

The girl did not belong here, nor to them, a reality that they had no choice but to accept. If there was anyone to be blamed it was not _him_. He was only a hand stretched out to point at the truth. If Sophie had a part in convincing the frail old man and his wife that she was some answer to a forgotten prayer it was her own naivety that had lead her to this moment.

He had granted her permission to flee, but never permission to vanish into thin air.

He heard her voice through the seam of the door and with a sigh pulled away from the wall to re-enter the room.

She wore a simple bodice and skirt, both yellow, and a riding cloak was draped on the bed. Plainclothes, he thought, but she beautified them as she did any article she chose. Her looks had not diminished with her status, nor her lack of pampering at Versailles - a rare and coveted charm. _True_ beauty.  The only thing that revealed her inexperience and petted upbringing was her hair, which was messily assembled - curls tumbling around her face, escaping her arrangement, and sagging heavily against her neck. He nearly suggested she put on a coif. 

She was twenty-one now, barely more than the slip of a girl he had known at eighteen; slender as a reed and glowing faintly with the indomitable fairness of youth. _Barely_ , his thoughts repeated. Barely. As though no time at all had passed at all, merely a change of costume. The fire of her tender heart was something he could nearly see, though he questioned what innocence she’d retained during the interval.

“Turn around,” he said, shaking himself out of his own mind. She looked alarmed.

“Why for?” she demanded, giving him a hard stare.

 _Impudent_ , he thought. Still coltish, under that angel’s face - no appreciation for her position.

“Because,” he said simply. “You are under arrest.”

She said nothing more, only giving him a betrayed look before turning, crossing her wrists behind her back. Slowly he approached her, leaning over to the bed. He took his dagger from his side and slit a sheet, pulling a long strip from it. Then, gently, he took her wrists, and wrapped the fabric around them.

Her fingers immediately curled into fists, and as he tied the knot. He heard her crying.

“Come,” he said, taking her elbow to guide her.

“My cloak,” she cried, looking at him in despair and he fought back a sigh - this was already taking so long. Silently he lifted the garment and draped it around her shoulders.

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered to him. He caught a tear on the edge of his finger as he tightened the bow under her chin and let it absorb into his skin. “Fabien…what good does it do -” her voice broke.

“Quiet,” he said, avoiding her eyes.

After that she would not face him, her head turned away so he could only see the apple swell of her cheek. He wasn’t certain if this was out of shame, or anger towards him. Most likely a mixture of the two. He picked up the bag she had set on the floor and could already tell it was heavier than what was needed, but he would deal with that later. He blew out the candle and ferried her through the dark, out into the hall and down the stairs.

At the sound of their feet Caron’s wife leapt from her chair - Caron appeared paralyzed, grasping the arms of the chair in such a way that his knuckles seemed about to burst through the skin of his hands.

“Because of your compliance,” Fabien said, holding Sophie back and away from them. “You will not be bothered. All that is asked is your discretion regarding this matter.”

“ _Oui_ , inspector,” Madame Caron said, looking at the girl in disbelief. “But, sir, what do we tell people?”

“Whatever fate you wish to invent for her,” he replied, disinterested. “Tell them she fell ill and died, if that lessens your humiliation. _I_ do not care.”

Sophie’s head was tucked towards her chest, trying to hide.

“Say your goodbyes,” Fabien said, pushing her to them.

He positioned himself near the door, attempting to give them some form of privacy, but he could not help his habit of vigilance. He observed that she did not say goodbye. She only said she was sorry, and thanked them for their love, their kindness, their generosity insisting that she had not deserved any of it.

 _Je suis vraiment désolée_ , over and over, through her tears, which Madame Caron kissed away and wiped away with her plump hands.

“God is with you,” the woman said. “And I am as well...whatever they believe of you, know that you are innocent in God’s eyes -”

Fabien cleared his throat, loudly.

Caron remained still, staring blankly into the fire which popped and crackled. “You are the devil himself, come to steal her away,” the old man mumbled, finally moving to stroke his pale veined scalp, in the midst of a nightmare.

It seemed to Fabien a reasonable association. After all, the notion that she was theirs had been nothing more than a fantastic image. As for the miconstrution - he was well used to it.

“Mademoiselle,” he said to Sophie after it had been long enough, dragging at her shoulder to pull her away from the sound of Madame Caron’s grating sobs.

Outside, the rain still drizzled down but the wind was less and the moon was still faint behind the cloud cover.

He left her standing beside the gate where Minos dozed, one foot cocked. He clicked at the horse and he shook himself, looking for his master’s voice. He tied her bag to him, lashing it with rope, and when he returned to her she was eyeing him with confusion and sniffing through her tears as they mingled with the damp. 

“There’s no cart, nor carriage,” she whispered into the night.

“Were you expecting a procession?” he said, eyeing her. “Turn.”

She did as she was told, and he had to gather her cloak aside to find her hands. He untied her and then spun her back to him, tying them loosely in front - even looser than he had in her room. 

“Fabien,” she attempted again, her hands grasping at his. “ _Please_ ,” she whispered.

He glanced up at her tear-stained face, pink and mottled from crying, her eyes bright as baltic amber.

“You first,” he said briskly, nodding to the horse towering beside them. Her face hardened instantly, chin dimpling with the clenching of her teeth.

“How?” she said, giving him a wary look, her forehead creasing. “You’ve _bound_ me.”

Her eyes flicked to his leg.

He tried to keep his face impassive, but he could not completely avoid embarrassment. It was not something he enjoyed acknowledging. But, of course, how could she not have noticed by now the pronounced limp he carried?

Foolish she may be, blind she was not.  

He shook his head in irritation, going to the horse and ignoring her. He bent down onto his knee with a grunt.

“Well?” he said, his hand out. She looked suspiciously at him, unconvinced. “Or perhaps you would like to walk, Mademoiselle,” he finished tersely, hand still outstretched for her to take.

She came, begrudgingly, letting him circle her arm with his hand, helping her keep her balance as she stepped up cautiously onto his thigh and then again as he fit her foot in his hand, boosting her into the stirrup. She clamored, trying to pull herself with her hands tied, and she cried out, feeling as though she was slipping. He caught her ankle, thrusting roughly up and finally she was seated, panting. Minos’ ears flattened, unimpressed.

Standing up slowly from the muddy cobbles Fabien cast a last look at the house. The fire-glow in the windows showed shadows moving, watching, waiting for something more.

When he settled behind her on the horse she pulled as far from him as she could, repulsed.

 _Nothing to be done_ , he thought, taking the reins into his hand. He was content to bear with the insult; he had decided that long ago.


	3. deux

 

ii

 

*

 

She woke to streams of light, the purple mist of dawn rising up in luminous ribbons from the tree-lined road they were traveling on.

Her whole body ached, slumped awkwardly in the saddle, and her limbs were entirely asleep. Minos was a huge horse, and his back cast her legs and hips so wide they screamed with soreness. Wincing, she rolled her head, feeling her nose bump against something. She frowned, opening her eyes again. It was Fabien’s neck she was against, her head on his shoulder where it had been for sometime. Disgusted, she pitched forward, which nearly sent her tumbling over the side of the horse save for the sudden jerk of Fabien’s arm around her waist to catch her. Sufficiently awake, her heart hammered against her chest, her hands clenching automatically wherever she could manage, her eyes glued to the hard ground below Minos’ long legs.

“Where are we,” she croaked, looking up to get her bearings and recover herself.  He relaxed the circle of his arm around her enough to let her separate from him.

“Outside Montluçon,” he said.

Sophie blinked, her eyes adjusting to the sun peeking through the trees.

“Montluçon?” she murmured. That was south, in Bourbonnais- nowhere near Versailles. “That’s impossible,” she added, considering the geography. How could they have gone so far in one night? “You lie -”

“We will stop there, and rest. Tomorrow we continue on to Guéret _,”_ Fabien went on, not listening. His other hand barely held the reins where they rested on his thigh - Minos content to make his way without any complaint.

Had they even stopped? The poor creature would have had to take water, or a rest, at _some point_ during the night. Fabien would never be so mistreating. It was a well-known fact that perhaps the only thing Fabien truly cared for on God’s earth was the horse she was now captive on. She must not have woken up, or more time had passed than she thought due to the shock of it all.

Sophie felt her breath coming quickly, tensing to try and prevent the tears welling in her eyes at the thought of lost hours.  She wished to press the heels of her hands to her face to stall them, but she did not want him to know she was upset. She didn’t know why, surely he _expected_ her to cry and carry on. Maybe that was the reason, to prove him wrong in at least that way.  

“Where are you taking me - the truth this time!” she blurted, wishing she could turn to face him, to look in his eyes. If she saw them she was sure she could find footing in defiance, instead of tears. 

“ _Guéret_ ,” Fabien repeated. “Or have you gone deaf? We’ll be crossing the river soon. The inn is on the other side...”

“Why would you take me to an inn if you’ve arrested me?” Sophie demanded, her voice climbing. She did not need the encouragement of his dull eyes after all. 

The very idea was so preposterous it made her furious. Why did he not want to get it over with? Why was he _insisting_ that they were going anywhere except Versailles? 

She had never even heard of Guéret except in the tales that there were wolves there - wolves that were impressive enough to earn a reputation. Her heart now sank into her stomach with a gulp. 

Would he take her there? Would he set them on her? Her body seized in horror. Perhaps he would leave her in some lonely dank cell first, so far away no one would even know. He would break her spirit, and then abandon her to the beasts. She’d be dead in obscurity, the same as her mother. The prediction was untamed, nearly childish. She could not envision Fabien being so cruel as to invoke that kind of punishment upon her, or take any satisfaction in watching her torn to shreds. At least, the Fabien she had left at Versailles would not. She was entirely uncertain of the current iteration.

“For _now,_ yes, you are under arrest,” Fabien said, interrupting the stream of thoughts. There was something to his voice - a lightness that seemed mocking. “If your temperament improves I may be inclined to make concessions...” he muttered under his breath, as though she could not hear every noise he made being so close.

“Why are you taking me to Guéret,” she continued, having decided she would take no stock in his last statement or much of anything he was saying. “Why have you not taken me to Versailles? Don’t you want to, to, parade me in front of everyone? To try me? Torture me? Impress your guard, your _King_?”

There was a lapse of tense silence as they went along and she felt Fabien’s posture change, his grip on the reins tightening and then relaxing again. She heard the leather of his gloves stretch over his hand and it disturbed her enough to make her quiet, fearing she had gone too far and prodded him into anger. He made not a sound, and she took this as sufficient evidence that she was foolish to believe that she was worth such effort as answering.  

Around them the trees were beginning to shed their summer leaves, and the road was littered with them. Minos’ hooves made a dry rattle as he plowed through them and it reminded her of snakes hissing. The sky was beginning to emerge in clear blue, birds silhouetted against it as the flitted to and from, calling, their voices unfamiliar to her. Her head spun.

She breathed heavily, clutching the horn of the saddle weakly with her tired hands. She felt faint. She was cold, and tired, and beginning to feel hungry. For supper the night prior the Carons insisted on mutton and it had not settled properly in her stomach (she was also not very fond of it to begin with) and they'd sent her to bed half full and uncomfortable. It was not doing her any favors now, trundling along.

“Monsieur,” she said, appealing to his age and authority. The rocking and bobbing motion of Minos’ gait was making her feel wretchedly sick. “I know am your prisoner, that my life is of little consequence, but… if you have any memory of friendship for me, _please_. I deserve to know -”

“I am taking you to Guéret, Mademoiselle De Clermont, because that is where I reside,” Fabien said to end her groveling. His voice had the slightest bite to them. “Further, I am no longer under the King’s employ, though I remain in his service should he ever require it.”

Sophie shook her head.

“I don’t understand,” she said, meekly. “Why? I’m nothing to you -”

“Because I own you,” he said simply, the words falling on Sophie's head like a brick.  There was a beat as he adjusted Minos’ path to avoid a large piece of branch that had fallen into the road. “You gave your life to me. I gave you leave, but I did not say I would permit it indefinitely.”

There it was, striking her dumb.

She looked out at the road again, at the trees, and those same alien birds, the strangeness of it. The close quiet of it. She could feel the breathes he made against her back, could feel his hips against her - she discarded the thought, staring at the lanks of hair making up Minos’ mane to keep herself upright. Her dress felt hot and constricting, and she knew there was a blush seizing her and crawling up her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut, her chin dropping to her chest.

“Wake up,” she desperately chanted. “Wake up, Sophie...”

Any moment she might rise from bed and help set the table for breakfast - if she could just shake herself from the trance.

“We will stop soon,” Fabien said, and nothing more about it. _In Montluçon,_ her mind repeated. Montluçon, to the south, and on to Guéret, where Fabien lived.

 

* * *

 

The innkeeper was astounded.

“All night? On one horse?” he said, considering them. They were an unnatural pair. The man was bedraggled, but imposing, his dark clothes and black riding gloves giving him the look of an undertaker. The girl, in mud-stained butter yellow, was nearly swaying on her feet behind him from exhaustion.

“Too dangerous to stop,” the man explained. The innkeeper looked him over again, and then back to the girl. Despite their odd appearance - the mismatching of their clothes, and their age - he did not sense any urgency from either of them. The man, Monsieur Marchal, had a beautiful horse outside: a coal black Friesian. A big, hardy looking fellow, much like his master. Men of low nature did not own such horses and he had a nose for detecting such qualities.

“No, of course not, especially when traveling with a lady,” the innkeeper said, nodding in agreement. He smiled in sympathy at the girl still standing motionless behind Marchal. She met his eyes for a moment, deep dark lovely eyes, like a mare’s, and then glanced away, shy.

“Poor Madame,” he tutted. Fabien glanced back to look at her. He did nothing to correct the man behind the counter, merely pulling his purse from his vest. The innkeeper’s ear seemed to grow larger just at the shaking sound it made. “She must be so tired," he went on to say, tsking softly. 

“Her hose fell lame while we were visiting cousins in Orléans,” Fabien lied, counting out coins onto the table between them. “It had to be shot.”

The innkeeper made a low sound of agony on her behalf. Sophie’s inside twisted. _What an utterly ridiculous story_.

“She is despondent,” Fabien continued blandly. “I promised her a full day and night of rest to recover before we continue…”

And here she was, cooperating with her silence.

“We will see to that,” the innkeeper nodded. He had been keeping count of the coins as Marchal deposited them on the table, and he knew for certain that this was no ordinary man. It was a bullshit yarn he spun, but one of the more innocuous he had heard in his time. He was lucky that he had stopped at his inn, perhaps for the privacy with his young lover. They could even be eloping, he considered. It would indicate why they did not speak much more than necessary and gave off the aura of not wanting many questions.  He would be sure to use most discretion. 

“I have a large room, perfect for you, with adjacent sitting room,” the  innkeeper smiled. “And a bath,” he added. “Brand new, pure copper.”

Sophie could not contain herself at that, looking up in interest. Fabien dropped another coin loudly and she immediately looked down again. The man had eyes in the back of his head.

The innkeeper finally moved his gaze to the pile on the table.

“Anything else please do not hesitate to request,” he said to Fabien, with a simpering grin. Fabien ignored it, sliding the money forward. “As soon as Babette makes up the bed we will have a hot breakfast sent up.” With that much he'd be willing to offer a whole cooked goose if that's what they wished. He'd go out and get it himself. 

Sophie’s eyes darted to Fabien’s back. _The bed_.

“And the bath, as soon as possible,” Fabien spoke.

“ _Oui_ Monsieur, and please, please, allow our laundry service, no extra charge," he clasped his hands in front of him gratefully, feigning modesty. As soon as he'd spoken he turned to the back rooms and kitchen behind the counter, yelling for the girl. 

“ _Merci,_ ” Fabien said, turning away from where the codger disappeared from. He glanced around, eyes landing on the only other person in the room with them.  Seated at a table in front of the fireplace a Spaniard sat chewing the end of a rough rolled cigar and nursing a bottle of wine. He was staring at Sophie with great interest, no doubt overhearing about the bath and letting his mind wander.

He met Fabien’s eye and winked, a smirk worming over his face.

Fabien had to remind himself for the second time that the last thing he wanted to do was throttle a stranger, especially when he was attempting to keep a low profile. He swallowed the bitter pill of his frustration, settling for a glare instead. 

He took a step closer to her, his shoulders blocking the man’s view, reaching down to take her hand from within her cloak. His back to the prying eyes he inspected her wrists. No bruises, but her skin was cold to the touch and splotched with lovely blue veins. She was still very delicate, that was apparent. Not one for exertion - it had been three years of pastoral living but her constitution had not grown much beyond what he had known at Versailles.

He was glad he had kept this in consideration, anticipating the pallor of her face and the dark circles under her eyes that he could see clearly and confirm up close.

Sophie watched his large hands turn hers over, his face too inscrutable to glean anything from.

She recalled the surprise she’d suffered when he had dismounted, and, without any word or warning, taken her hands and slit the binding with his knife in a violent motion. She’d yelped in shock, the grubby strip of rain-soaked sheet falling to the ground where he threw it.

From there he’d held out his arms to her, and she’d cautiously taken his shoulders in her shaking hands, throbbing with blood, as he helped her down from the horse. As soon as her legs touched the ground she’d bit back another cry. She felt like her whole body had been kicked roughly out of place, her lower half, her hips and back so stiff and her legs wobbling slightly with the effort. It had been months since she’d been on the back of a horse, and she could feel it now in all its anger after enduring the night.

He had not grown cross with her, or negligent, as she righted herself. He stood there, silent as ever, like a dumb tree, as she got her bearings. In fact, he seemed _extremely_ willing to assist her, his hands firm at her waist to hold her up. He smelled of rain and trees and sweat, and she was certain that she fared no better to him, which made her blush in embarrassment at their proximity. She held her hands against his shoulders, and the front of his vest, feeling rushing down her legs in a sensation of pins and needles.

He spoke briefly to a groom who had come out to lead Minos to a stall, and his voice was so close she turned her face from it self consciously, beside herself that she had to cling to him the way she did. She was so preoccupied she did not even hear what he was saying. 

She was finally pulling away when she felt his hand come to the back of her neck, stilling her.

She watched the groom go past with Minos in tow out of the corner of her eye. His arm wound around her waist, tucking her close to him and she wondered why in the world he would do such a thing, her face growing hotter as she sensed that they were pressed very tightly together.

It was a warning he spoke, head bent to her ear, nearly to her neck. She was to go along with what he said and act as a modest young girl should, not making herself available to notice, nor kick up any kind of protest.

“ _Surely_ , _”_ he said, his grip on the back of her neck shifting slightly, his thumb swiping along the curve of her jaw. “ _You could put your skills of deception to good use with three years of practice_.” Her skin prickled with goosebumps and she pressed her hands to his chest to pry herself back slightly. This time he let her, stepping away from her entirely like the past few moments had not even occurred.

“Are they sore?” he said, in the present, flicking his eyes to hers. She curled her fingers into her palm, unsettled by the intensity of his stare. He searched her face, unblinking, and she cleared her throat slightly. Again she felt self conscious - there was no telling what she looked like after such a night and his scrutiny her, especially because she couldn’t tell what he thought, was degrading.

“Only a little,” she admitted, if only to get him to stop, and to her surprise found it mostly true. They were more stiff than sore.

“The blood is returning to them,” he said, dropping her hand and looking away, glancing over her shoulder. She was about to follow his eyes and see what it was he found so interesting but the moment passed, interceded by a clear, high voice. 

“Good morning, Monsieur, Madame,” They turned in unison to a red-headed freckled girl, no more than fifteen, who had appeared from the hallway. She bobbed in a clumsy curtsy, a slight pant to her voice, her eyes taking in all their dishevelment with a bit of astonishment.  “I am Babette - this way, to your room -.”

"Ehhhh, Babette!" the innkeeper scolded, grouching from his perch behind the desk. "Watch that friendly tone, girl!" 

She blushed, shuffling to them apologetically. 

They were lead down the hall and up a back staircase to a second floor room which was just as the innkeeper suggested: a large bedroom and ensuite study with sofa and tables. There was a fireplace, as well, in both rooms and a scullery was kneeling in one, finishing her work. She glanced at them once and then again, sharing the same amazement as Babette.

A valet had already brought what little belongings they had along as well - Sophie’s sad little bag and Fabien’s even more modest rucksack. The large windows in the bedroom overlooked the road below and the other window in the adjacent room had a glance of the stables and kitchen garden behind the inn. She moved aside as two muss-haired boys carried in the slipper tub, polished to a beautiful burnished orange, to set in front of the fireplace in the bedroom.

Sophie looked around, her head swiveling this way and that. She'd never thought Fabien to be one for something like it. She knew it was no Versailles, but in all her time with him she’d never seen him spending his own time outside of dank dungeons and his hideous, earthy little hideout behind the palace - no more than a cell itself with a close, claustrophobic feel. Some animal cave where he could work undisturbed.

While riding she'd dimly expected them to make a roadside camp, Fabien barbarically instructing her to bed down in branches with all those ugly crawling things that lived in the litter. Here _he_ was the one looking entirely alien, awkwardly standing there among the wood and bright fixtures of the room with all the charm of a coat rack.

“Take care of her,” he said brusquely to the maid who nodded, looking to Sophie who immediately stopped her staring. He hesitated a moment, their eyes meeting once before breaking away, and Sophie felt he meant to say something more. His mouth was pursed, holding something at bay.

Babette took Sophie’s arm - always people taking her arms, she felt she should suggest walking ties - and pulled gently.

“Whatever else she may need, as well,” he added, finally, as they began the walk to the other room. Sophie reeled, glad her back was to him so he could not see her disbelief.

She could not imagine what amount of money this was costing. Would he expect her to pay him back? To work for it? Was this some terrible torture in itself to hold above her head later?

“This way, Madame,” Babette said, tugging her again. “Let’s get you out of those clothes." Sophie barely heard it.

She let herself be strung along, and all the while, as Babette undressed her, unspooling her like thread, her body automatically followed old motions: a raised arm here, standing still, being peeled like an orange down to her petticoats.

She seated her for a moment at the table, squeezing her shoulders sweetly.

“Madame must be so tired,” Babette said, draping the dress - her best - over the screen beside the toilette. “To be caught in the rain, and sharing a horse…even with someone familiar...” Behind her, the large metal tub was draped in linen and the same ruddy scullery from before was beginning the endless task of filling it, hauling buckets of water back and forth from some unknown source to the hearth, and then the tub itself, her face red from exertion. 

Sophie didn’t know what to say, or how to correct Babette - she was certainly no Madame any longer, and then it had been Madame De Cassel. Her throat tightened, Fabien’s stern warning echoed in her mind and she swallowed.  

Babette took towels from a large bowl, wrung them, and gently massaged Sophie’s hands and pressed them about her face and neck. She applied oil, dabbing it on, and Sophie, with eyes closed, wearily conceded herself to the treatment. It had been so long… she could imagine she was back in her apartment at Versailles, except, of course, she could not hear the one thing she missed the most - music.

“Monsieur seems a serious kind. Is he a scholar?” Babette said after rubbing her briskly down all over, and guiding Sophie to the bath, careful to not let her burn herself on the hot metal by arranging the linen clumsily. The girl was filling the emptiness with chatter.

 _He is shy,_ a voice whispered at the back of her mind. _Earnest_..

Ignoring it, and relaxed, Sophie nearly laughed. Serious, yes. Babette didn’t know the half of it. Fabien was serious as death itself - but a scholar? Debatable. A student in the misfortune of others, but of what else she could not name. In her opinion he was as well trained and intelligent as a hunting dog and just as single minded. Whatever he had accumulated in the way of scholarship was simply a devotion to his task.

The door was thankfully closed now, hiding Fabien from view. Even if she had expressed such thoughts she doubted he would have heard her. She wondered what he was doing. Probably washing, or eating, she thought. Combing his hair, shaving. Whatever it was that Fabien did to maintain that he was indeed a civilized person.

At Versailles he was never unkempt except due to extenuating circumstances and she knew more than one woman at court who found him _attractive_ , if not forbidden. Hearing them speak about it brought about an uneasy feling that made her take careful sips of wine or walk away, not wanting to hear any longer about the dangerous looks in his eyes as they cast about a room or his _darkness_ or the character and handsomeness of his face.

He was a boor, she would think. Nothing exotic or exciting about that. Neat, yes, cordial at times, a strained or awkward smile here or there to keep up appearances, but that wasn’t enough to call him _courtly_ . Cold, _old_ , meddling, coarse, old fashioned and uninspired in dress and she’d never seen him dance, not even once. As far as she could tell he barely ate, disliked music, and never touched a drop of any libation - no doubt to keep his wits and out of personal paranoia.

Then there were his other deeper, more personal sins. He’d killed her mother. She felt the clench of an old wound.

He’d betrayed her to Cassel.

 _He let you go...he let you live,_ the voice sounded again, and she brushed it away once more. Yes, he let her go but what use was that now that she was back at his disposal? Now she didn't even have shield of their secret bargain to buffer against whatever he intended; she was totally at his mercy in the new and bizarre privacy he was afforded.

“ _Inspector_ ,” Sophie said, remembering the question she'd neglected to answer. She felt a twinge of immediate regret. It could arise questions. This anxiety was short lived. All other thoughts instantly melted away the moment she touched her pretty foot to the water.  She nearly clamored in, sinking down into the hot tub with a groan of satisfaction, her eyes closing. It was not suggested for one's health, but illness be damned. It was so hot, and so lovely she would be happy to die. 

“Inspector,” Babette marveled, and Sophie distantly recognized that Babette did not know what that meant, nor did she really care. She sat beside her on a stool, adding things to the water in a haphazard way. A pitcher of milk, a flutter of herbs, a vial of oil. Sophie half expected her to dump in a glass of wine or a whole apple.

“Monsieur Valerie says that this makes it nice, for ladies,” she confided about the scatter of ingredients. The girl's freckles were like a smattering of stars in the night sky. Charming, she thought. She knew her own skin had been tanned since her farewell from Versailles and she had earned a few moles and freckles here and there, but after awhile she was mostly confined to the house with the Caron’s, who were too old to do much traveling or rigorous work, and her old pallor was mostly regained. The most Sophie did was take air or attend to Madame Caron’s morning walk, or collect eggs for the old cook.

Sophie didn’t begrudge the girl her training, biting her tongue. At Versailles she’d once been treated to an entire bath full of milk, not that she had particularly enjoyed it. It had been at Cassel’s request. Besides, she could not contend - her clumsy performance at the Caron’s would have gotten her fired within a week anywhere else. 

A maid entered carrying a clean linen shift, which she replaced on the screen, taking the yellow dress away to be laundered.

Sophie watched her carry it off through one cracked eye - the dress had been her first purchase with the meager salary she'd cobbled together. She’d been proud of it, at the time, but now she felt only disdain for the thing and she was glad to see it go.

On and on Babette droned, her words becoming mindless to Sophie’s ears while she dozed, soaking in the water. It wasn’t until Babette roused her with a light shake that she realized it had been quite some time, the water gone cold.

Babette helped her out and dried her and brought the shift over her head. It felt so cool and light and lovely on her skin, which was dewy and warm. At the table again she let Babette comb her hair and set it into a rough braided arrangement around her head.

“Would Madame like something to eat?” Babette asked. “Monsieur has taken his meal…”

So, he _did_ eat.

Sophie shook her head. She did not feel hungry anymore, though she knew she would probably wake later ravenous.

“It is the middle of the day, isn’t it,” she said, yawning, and Babette made an admonishing sound.

“No matter about that, Madame,” she said. “A fine time to go to bed after such a night.” She stood, beginning to draw the drapes across the window, darkening the room, like curtain-fall signaling the end to a long bizarre play. 

Sophie rose from the table and the toilette and let Babette lead her to the bed, which was large and also draped and looked so immeasurably soft she could not have cared about anything else at all.

From the next room she could smell wafts of pipe smoke.

It was the last thing she sensed as she was laid down and the cover was brought over her and she immediately fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

There was a creak, followed by a bump.

Fabien opened his eyes to the find the candle had burned very low, casting the room in shadow. Sitting up from the settee where he had spread out, leaving Sophie to the bed, he cocked his head, listening. _Creak_ . _Bump_. He frowned, slowly rising from the sofa, his hand at his hip out of instinct. The cushion had been thin and his lower back pinched. 

He sensed it was late in the night - Sophie had slept all day and well through the evening, which did not surprise him. In the meantime he had seen to the necessary arrangements, had lunch, a supper, wine, a digestive (an herbal concoction that he did not find particularly soothing in any way), and finally lay down to try and quiet his mind. He had just been parsing through Isaiah when he'd drifted into a shallow and dreamless nap, the book splayed open on his chest, his bad leg propped up on an end table to stretch it.

Facing the bedroom, he listened again for the strange sound. Instead of the creak, and the following bump, the handle on the bedroom door rattled loudly and a groan of the hinges as it turned and the door was pushed open. It swung wide, thudding loudly against the wall.

“Mademoiselle?” he whispered, for Sophie was standing in the doorway, her arms hanging at her sides. In her long white shift and streaked with dying fire light she appeared to be a spirit, hovering there between two worlds. “What is it?” he continued, a little louder, but other than her face turning slightly towards his voice, she gave no indication she had heard him at all.

Fabien stood back, watching in surprise as instead she drifted into the room, the hem of her shift skimming the ground because it hung off of her narrow shoulder and down one arm, covering her hand entirely. The room was cold now and she would catch a chill, knowing her sensitivity. 

“Sophie,” he tried, a bit more stern, watching her walk calmly into the room where she promptly bashed into  the corner of an end table hard enough to knock it over with a heavy thud and clatter of wood. Fabien was in a state of disbelief ; not only was she ignoring him, she apparently did not care about what she was doing either, lumbering on with no hesitation.

Seeing her heading straight for another piece of furniture in her path, Fabien immediately lunged to grab her and yank her aside.

“Mademoiselle,” he hissed, taking her in his arms before she could do more harm to herself or to the room - she also seemed to be making for the door. She said nothing, but paused, rocking slightly on her heels and stumbling over her feet for balance. “Mademoiselle…” he repeated, hands slipping down to hold her out from him, but she gave him no response, her head drooping.

“Sophie,” he tried, tilting his face closer and lifting her chin to inspect for signs of illness or delirium. His first instinct was perhaps she had eaten something unsettling, or worse, tampered with. He touched her forehead, looking for a fever, his heart rate increasing. To have come all this way -

He remembered with a flood of relief that she hadn’t touched anything to eat before falling into bed and it became clear what it was.

She was fast asleep.

“Sophie,” Fabien tested her again. No response, only a flutter of movement beneath her eyelids and an ungainly shifting of her balance. With him holding her she leaned into his arms, probably finding him much warmer than the room. 

She swayed, her head nodding, and after a moment  he slowly moved behind her, taking her shoulders in his hands, gently pulling her shift back into place as he did so. Clearing his throat, he slowly turned her around, back towards the flung open door. He remembered Bontemp commenting on the matter - the King’s proclivity for sleepwalking. How it was best not to wake them if it could be helped and they were not immediately endangering themselves at of a violent or emotional reaction.

“Back to bed,” he murmured, steering her in the proper direction. She shuffled along, nearly tripping over herself as they made the short journey back to the room. Had it not been for his help she surely would have tumbled, or worse, crashed into the heavy bureau or chairs in the room in her stupor.

He brought her to the edge of the mussed side of the large bed and turned her around once more, so that she faced him. Her lips parted, and she muttered something he couldn’t quite make out - the gibberish of a dream.

“Lie down,” he instructed, and she sat heavily down on the bed, rolling over to flop her head upon the pillow. Graceless, he thought. Like the actions of a little girl sent reluctantly to her room.

Seeing her settling, he covered her again with the blankets, tucking the top around her shoulders and down the line of her body to secure her more before he drew away to inspect his work.

“Mademoiselle?” he said softly, testing the reaction once more. She didn’t even twitch. Puzzled, he moved her hair behind her ear, and felt her cheek with the back of his hand, just to be certain - no excessive heat, or flush. Just her warm, soft skin. She sighed, turning further into her pillow and twisting the covers around her. Her arms coiled round herself in a hug. 

The journey and all its confusion must have brought on her restlessness. She had not eaten either, and her stomach might have had some influence on the behavior. He would have to monitor it in the morning, to be sure she wouldn’t faint on the road.

“Fabien,” she said, clear as day, though she was obviously asleep and her eyes remained shut.

Fabien put his hand upon her head to soothe her. “Shh,” he hushed, and she quieted. He wondered what she saw in her dream, what she was doing when she rose and drifted across the room into his own, his curiosity getting the better of him. He examined the head under his palm. Thin as eggshell. He did not wish to pry it open, but had he the capability to put his face to her ear and hear the whispering as when one held a shell and heard the sea. He wondered what the oracle of her thoughts would reveal. His eyes roamed over the patterns of her curls like dredges in a cup. What tasseography was tangled there, telling his fortune.

His fingers drifted to the nape of her neck. Another fragile thing, curved slightly and swan like. He could have wrapped his hand around it had he the mind to. He’d touched it roughly there earlier in the day, and he regretted it, but he didn’t have a way to apologize. The groom had leered at her and on instinct he had gathered her close to him to make clear that he stood in the way of whatever thought the young fool was having. 

He fitted his hand upon her neck the way he had, cupping it, his thumb touching the curve of her jaw, and the softer place underneath. She was so slight, he’d thought as he pulled her into his embrace. He could have hidden her inside his cloak and covered her - wrapped it all the way around her with some to spare. It was such a childish notion: parceling her away, folding her up inside of himself and guarding her like a dog with a bone. It was part of what had led him to this place, and he knew it but felt incapable of stopping it. He had tried, exhaustively, but it kept coming back, insatiable. The mystery of her fate had lorded over him for so long he did not know what to make of the present. 

It didn’t satisfy him. Not yet. There was still much to uncover, and three years was a long time.

Her back rose and fell deeply, entirely at ease in his presence even after all of his coarseness with her. Fabien’s eyes strayed tiredly to the other side of the bed, considering.

He rubbed his brow, eyes tired. It would be fine for one night, he thought, looking at her fast asleep again.

This way he could sense if she was trying to get out of bed, at least. It was only one night, he repeated, sinking to the bed, ignoring the yelp of pain in his leg as he arranged himself.

Only a night.


	4. trois

 

iii

 

*

 

Sophie jolted awake, up on her elbows. The room was still dark, but with the curtains being so thick she could not discern the time nor how long she had slept. Her disorientation was never going to end. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she had woken up in some other country entirely at that point. She was glad to see that she was at least in the same room, in the same bed, in the same clothes, and time had not crept up and snatched details from her without her knowing.  

Her heartbeat slowed and she let herself down back in the pillows, a shuddering breath leaving her.

It was then, as she calmed herself, she realized that Fabien was in the bed beside her. She could feel the heat coming from him, and the weight of him on the blanket, and the sound of his breathing.

When she dared herself to look she saw that he was on top of the mattress entirely, leaving her untouched under the covers.

He simply dropped himself upon it, by all appearances.  In the chair near the fireplace she could see his vest laid out, and she wondered at what point he had come in and removed it before lying down.

He had changed into a clean linen shirt, the laces open to reveal a triangle of his chest. His face and hands were clean, even his nails were scrubbed. He had one arm draped over his middle, the other straight beside him, fingers curled inwards. His legs, too, were straight out, and only his neck was bent, face turned to one side, towards her. In sleep there was only stillness and discipline to him, just as when he was awake.

Recovering from the initial scare, she found she was fixated on the site and on the very concept of him deigning to sleep beside her.

Maybe the sofa was uncomfortable. Not enough sufficient room for his bad leg, which was a great riddle unto itself. Surely, she thought, it was for none of those practical reasons at all, but to make sure she did not try to flee in the night.

He had no need to worry - she was more frightened of the wrath she’d incur running than the cautious state of things currently playing out. He'd spent three long years searching before smoking her out, so far as she could tell. He would have no patience left for her attempting to escape.

She considered how many had seen him like this. Not many, she supposed. Her mother, she blanched. Though how could it count in that case? They’d both had agendas, and Beatrice had done her best to erase him from the earth itself. 

But there were others, too, no matter how unbelievable it seemed.

Her thoughts meandered through cold and damp tunnels, shuddering at the scratch of rodents and the endless drip of water, only to find one of his Musketeers sitting outside of his chamber, hat partially over his face.  He was, apparently, holding down the fort.

 _“_ _Il s'occupe de sa santé_ _,”_   he’d smirked at her when she’d asked where the spymaster was, waking him.   _Attending to his health_.

“Has he fallen ill?” she asked, perplexed and worried. Surely he could not have let himself be poisoned _again_ , though he did have the habit of accumulating injuries. It came with the job description.

The musketeer laughed at her, the stupid girl who his master had somehow brought into their ranks and embroiled in their work. ( _Willingly_ , he reminded his compatriots each time they gathered to discuss the exceptional thought of the young beauty in their midst. It was no act on Marchal’s part to boost morale, no matter what they had thought at first. Her leash was tightly in Marchal’s hand.)

“ _A rendezvous,_ ” he’d explained, leaning forward and his voice slowing in the way one’s did when speaking to a child. She flushed with embarrassment at the implication and the way he fingered his goutee. “Do you know? With that woman. The one who dresses as a Physician _,_ ” the Musketeer added before his eyes appraised her fully. “Seems wasteful to me, what with you standing right here, and you’re a perfectly healthy girl who dresses like one, too _._ ”

“I beg your pardon,” Sophie whispered, drawing herself up. “I have no interest in his affairs, or what he does. I only wished to pass on some information I’ve gathered -”

“Oh, but of course,” The Musketeer said. “You know,” came his voice again, an afterthought. “I should not even be talking to you,” he smiled, leering at her, and Sophie swallowed. “I was warned to stay away…you are, as he put, _hors limites_.” Perhaps he meant to sound flirtatious but it only sent a chill through her.

Sophie did not have a reply, her voice caught in her throat. _Off limits_.

“Don’t get me in trouble, please Mademoiselle, you know how he can be,” The Musketeer bowed his hat to her, the feather slapping against the floor. It was no true apology.

“I will return later,” Sophie managed, turning back, shaking her head. As if she had any control over Fabien Marchal -

“Where are you running to, little mouse - if it’s so important you can whisper it into _my_ ear!” he laughed, snatching her hand to stall her and she jerked it away so hard she could not believe her own strength. Startled, the Musketeer glared at her.

“Ridiculous, the two of you,” he said darkly, voice a growl. “He won’t be back until late tonight,” he continued, brooding now. “Perhaps he’ll have something nice to give you then, the leftovers,” he continued, sneering now that she had rebuffed him. She hated it, the way men were - the way they easily exchange their charm for hatred. She could smell the wine on his breath and see the staining on his teeth and mouth. For certain Fabien was gone, then, leaving this feral imbecile in charge.

A rendezvous was one thing, but he obviously did not stay with his women till morning. She didn’t even know how he found time to sleep at Versailles - an hour or two, here or there, if that.

Here, his dark hair was combed and she saw what she had seen the night prior, believing she was dreaming - thin strands of gray, gone silver, mixed in the black, especially apparent at the front where an inch of roots were beginning to go completely gray in the beginnings of a streak. They reflected the little light from between the curtains once more, shimmering in the way that silver things did even in the darkness. Glinting.

She was touching it, now, a bit mesmerized. Fingers grazing at the place where his hair touched his forehead, padding gently. His face, this close, was not as lined as she had imagined it would be. Her mother, the physician, they had not lived long enough to witness this Fabien Marchal. Only her. Only little Sophie had managed.

Her whole body stilled in horror. Had her hand simply grown a mind of its own? Was she compelled to repeat what she had attempted, in her stupor, before?

He didn’t stir at all - far too asleep - proof maybe that he too had limitations, no matter how inhuman they appeared.

She stared at her own hand, denying it even belonged to her. So slowly, terrified to wake him and face his judgement or even the prospect of having to explain,  she pulled it back towards her. His hair had been soft. His skin had been soft, as well. She remembered his soft eyes on her, glimpses of softness in him that were not upon his face but in his voice, in his carriage -

_You have a gentle heart..._

She rolled over, pulling the quilt to her, staring at the far wall. Her offending hand was pinned beside her now, out of trouble. She could not place her feelings. She wanted to be angrier, or more afraid, but she wasn’t and it was unsettling in its own way. She’d slept for hours and he had done nothing but let her.

At Versailles, despite what rumor could have generated if others were privy to their relationships, or even among his men, he had never touched her the way other more bold individuals in his position could have. Instead he seemed clinical, if not intentionally careful with his behavior around her. She recalled a sense of silly pride when she was able to catch him off guard with more salacious details from the salons - card table gossip, the goings ons of bored and useless nobles - how he’d clear his throat, slide his eyes away.

Some might call it a lack of interest rather than honor, and maybe that was true. She was pretty enough to get herself out of most trouble, but not to gain security. That much was obvious.

She had never proved to be a person worthy of remembrance or much notice - her life had told her again and again that she was a forgettable piece in a larger picture. That she would have to make her own way the best she could, born along in the currents that swept her up. At least in the past three years she had become comfortable with the invisibility. 

It was that meager, helpless, worthless life she had offered him, and he’d taken it. Despite convincing herself that he too would forget, he had not let it go.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere she had drifted off again. She was always an easy sleeper, something Beatrice used to remind her of with some regularity. She could fall asleep at the drop of a hat, anywhere, and wake up fresh as a daisy and had been that way since she was small. There were stories her mother would tell her of how she’d simply stop crying if she was fussy and nod right off in the middle of a fit only to wake up moments later smiling and happy, all displeasure forgotten...

Babette opened the curtain and Sophie woke, shielding herself from the sudden light by rolling over into her pillow.

Fabien was not there when she opened her eyes - his vest and all trace of him gone, not even a wrinkle where he had been laying. The door separating the bedroom and next room was closed but she sensed no movement or noise from the other side of it.

Had she dreamed all of it? It had seemed real - _he_ had felt real - she recalled, humiliated, but she was also sure she was descending into madness with every passing moment.

“Where is Monsieur,” she said to Babette when the girl began readying her toilette for the morning. She’d carried a tea service, setting it down on the edge of the table with a covered dish of porridge.

“He departed into town to purchase Madame a new horse - rather early,” she said with a smile. “He told me I was to let you sleep, and to make sure you eat. I think you will find the weather much better for traveling today and he wants you to have all your strength!”

Sophie slowly gathered herself out of the bed, looking out the window at the clear sky. At least that much was certain. She let the rest pass over her without commenting.

“Monsieur has seen to new garments for you,” Babette continued, expecting her mistress to be pleased. “Pretty things, if I do say so myself…”

Sophie again said nothing, sitting down on the bench in front of the girl.

 _You’re an idiot if I say so myself,_ she thought sourly of the little maid, scolding her poor mood afterwards. It wasn’t Babette’s fault for being ignorant.

The dress Fabien had approved of was yellow, with reed boned corset and beautiful ochre velvet ribbons on the bodice. The skirt was yellow silk, a departure from her plain yellow muslin and wool she had been wearing the night before and it made the most beautiful, familiar sound to Sophie’s ears. Babette was beyond impressed, petting the garment as she dressed her like it was a cat. She piled Sophie’s hair around her head in a halo of braids, gold ribbon weaving throughout, and pinched her cheeks to make them blush.

“So lovely,” she sighed, winding a curl around her finger to drape it around Sophie’s neck. “The color suits you very well. It makes your hair look so dark and to see how doe-eyed you are - ”

“Yes,” she replied. She touched one of the ribbons, feeling the velvet between her fingers. “It is rather lovely.”

She ate her porridge, tasteless and comforting to her nervous stomach while Babette packed her small bag and tidied the room. It felt good to eat, and once she began she realized she was starving, scraping the bowl clean.

At Versailles she would have been horrified to act that way, or be seen by a maid who would surely report it to others, but Versailles this was not. Finished, she rose, walking into the side room, the silk dress trailing after her.

Such a sound, she thought again and again with each step, watching it move as she walked. It mesmerized her.

Here she saw what little remained of Fabien - his pipe laid neatly on a table, along with a book put aside. A Bible, she recognized, a bit mordant. She’d forgotten his piety.

She sat heavily on the settee, hands in her lap, staring into the low fire in the hearth blankly. He’d left her on her own, and she still stayed. No attempt to run, no move to coerce Babette into assisting her. No revelations. She merely sat, and waited, like a little dog.

Easier to just accept, she mused, than give herself more grief with him. She had done that before in worse situations and survived. Surely she could again. Besides, she knew better than to do anything else. 

She sat like that for a while, amusing herself by nosing through his Bible - pages worn thin from him thumbing through it, the binding nearly falling apart in her hands. She flipped through it carelessly, examining the tediously small print - all in latin. The only words she could recognize were the ones in the front cover, scratched with a thick quill in childish lettering. _Fabien Rene Michel Marchal_ _MDCXXXVII_ _L'abbaye de Moutier-d'Ahun -_

No wonder the book was falling apart; it seemed well over twenty years old. Fabien Rene Michel Marchal, she repeated to herself, running her finger under the letters slowly. A sprawling name, which dripped with a sense of personal importance - probably handed down. She could not recall her own middle name, the fact dying along with Beatrice and burned with all the evidence of her deceit. The handwriting of his youth was spread out and boyish, and she couldn’t help but smile thinking that once the stoic man had been a child scrawling his full name out in his Bible and carefully dictating the year it was given. The name of the place, an abbey, she could not recognize, though she assumed it was well known enough to him to warrant recording.

She wondered what he had been doing there, though it explained why he seemed able to read Latin. Perhaps his parents had sent him there in expectation of becoming clergy. She could have laughed openly at that. Illuminated drawings flitted back and forth between the pages when she turned them, and she touched some of these faded places, studying as though it was the codex of Fabien's soul. 

The door opened, and Fabien stepped in, stopping short when he saw her with the book in her hand.

She froze, staring at him, her blood running cold. What an idiot she was, being caught red handed with what was obviously a relic of his childhood, something he carried on his person -

“Did you eat?” he asked, his eyes sliding to her face. She nodded dumbly up and down.

“I’m sorry,” she started to say, when her paralysis had worn off, her blood back to rushing through her and roaring in her ears.

Fabien said nothing, but walked to her and gently took the book out of his hand. He looked at the front cover, where it was still open, and his face betrayed no emotion. “You left it out, and I didn’t know where you were,” she continued, wishing she would stop talking but finding she wasn’t able to. “I couldn’t read it -,” she said.

“The monks taught us Latin,” he said, closing the covers. “Among other things.” He went and deposited it into his bag. She couldn’t even be satisfied that she was right about the abbey.

“Did you try my pipe, as well?” he asked, and Sophie nearly choked.

“No! I swear!” she hurried to say. “I only looked at the book, I promise.”

Fabien picked up the offending pipe and tucked it into a pocket, a queer look on his face. Not acrimony, as Sophie had anticipated, or even pointed. Something entirely different.

“Are you prepared to leave?” he asked, sailing over her discomfort.

She nodded again and he looked at her more fully.

“Did you sleep poorly?” he asked slyly, and she sensed that he was feeling for something more than just the obvious answer. She wished that the floor might open and swallow her up. So it hadn’t been a dream - there was no reason he would ask her in such a way if he had not spent half the night beside her.

“No,” she said, busying her eyes with the patterns on the carpet and not betraying herself. “I slept well.”

There was a pause.

“The dress suits you,” he said.

She looked down at the bodice, not knowing what to say.

“It’s a fine dress,” she said, voice tight as the stays. “The other was fine too...you didn’t have to go out of your way -,”

“I thought you liked when I bought you dresses,” he replied and her mouth fell open, speechless at such a remark. His eyes were glittering when he lit them on her, infinitely amused, like a cat toying with some unfortunate prey, content to see her torture through. 

“The horse is bay,” he said, barreling through her silence. “There were no white, which I know you favor as that is the horse you stole.”

Her hands clenched together in her lap, holding onto each other tightly, as though it might alleviate the absurdity of what he was saying or to pray desperately to whatever good intention of protection God might have for her, protestant tho she be. It was not about the color of horses, she wished to tell him, but she knew it wouldn’t matter nor land in anyway on his ears.

“Of course,” he added, eyebrows raised at her. “You may always save me the money by sharing a saddle, since you are content to share my belongings...”

“No!” she blurted, face scarlet, looking like she might jump out of her skin should he say one more word.

Fabien touched his fist to his mouth as though he meant to cough.

“I see,” he managed. He trying very hard to suppress a smile.  

 

* * *

 

The way to Guéret was beautiful, even Sophie had to admit. The road was beginning to slope upwards into rolling hills and on either side stretched dense woodland and threading estuaries. The air was clean and clear and cold and she could taste it each time she took a breath. Perhaps it was the taste of snow from the mountain tops melted and carried down through the creeks and brooks they passed.

She stayed close to him on the road, which was not difficult as her horse, indeed a bay mare that Fabien did not provide a name for, was tied loosely to Minos. To prevent her from wandering, he’d explained. He sensed no danger, but there were animals that roamed the woods and the less they saw of them the better, and the last thing he needed was for her to go crashing through the brush.

“What kind of animals,” she asked, anticipating the answer.

“Wolves,” he said, not looking away from the road.

She shut herself up, listening to the rhythmic sound of the horse’s hooves tramping the road. She had not ever heard of a wolf killing someone during the day.

“Surely you are not frightened, Mademoiselle De Clermont,” Fabien said, and Sophie tightened her gloved hands ( _gloves_ , he’d bought her gloves as well - had produced them from his pocket like a magician did a dove _)_ on the reins, offering him no response for the sake of her pride. They were riding nearly parallel, which meant he could just as well see the expression on her face if he wanted to look.

Sophie listened to the sound of the woods, the creak of trees in the wind and the careening of rabbits and other little creatures making their ways. Birds warbled every now and again - most had fled for warmer shores, she suspected. Winter would be coming before she knew it.

“You have not asked once about my leg,” Fabian said suddenly and Sophie nearly pulled her horse to a stop. He was leaned back a little in his saddle, cloak draped around him. He looked at her, curious, and then back to the road. 

She was attempting to remain _polite_ , she wanted to say. One did not just go around trying to discover the origins of people’s injuries, especially after said people had been found deliberately snooping through such people's things. She was still nursing her mortification, and had tried to be good - that is, being quiet, undisturbed, and in every way the most perfect and compliant ward lest it come back to snap at her. Not saying anything didn’t prohibit her from straying her eyes to it, however, or meditating on it. She chewed the inside of her cheek. He must feel that - people's eyes on him. It did not disturb her, and she did not find it unseemly, but each step he took was another shake to her senses that this was not the Fabien of her Versailles. 

His gait was not so unsteady, and it wasn’t so obvious, but she couldn’t reconcile it to herself yet. It gnawed on her like worry. 

The Fabien of her memory strode everywhere he went; he was agile and quick as a viper, striking before someone could even anticipate it. His physical presence dominated every aspect of him, it filled rooms the moment he entered. Now he carried himself differently, and she could not put her finger on the character of it. Something subdued. Not weak, she knew that. Fabien was not weak, in any form. Cautious; more considerate of his interaction with the space that he occupied. It was almost a sort of dignity he exuded, a way of daring those around him to make assumptions.

If he wanted to talk, she would attempt it. He would find her the most empathetic listener, and the most charming amusement if he found himself tired of such a personal topic. Had he asked her to jump off the horse and do a bouree she probably would have performed that as well if she believed it would please him and buy her some more peace of mind. Besides, he appeared to be in good humor by Fabien's measure. 

“Does it hurt?” she questioned, gingerly. While he never seemed to struggle with it, the limp did not look comfortable and she was sure it pained him. She had not seen the injury, but she could imagine it would take a good bit of damage to make Fabien express it at all.

“At times,” he said. An understatement, to be sure, but he was acclimated to it now and it no longer pressed insistently at the front of his skull. 

“Can you tell when it rains?” she found herself asking, her mind going immediately to the Caron’s who always complained of their arthritic hands and knees when the weather was ugly or cold, able to measure the pain like some sort of barometer. 

“No,” he said, sighing. “It would be of at least _some_ use to me if I could.” 

She watched him tip his face back slightly, the sun casting upon it freely. His eyes drifted shut, and Sophie was witness to a being she did not know at all. His tranquility was unrecognizable; it was though he had transformed entirely. His shoulders were rounded and relaxed and his hands were just the same. He did not look like her warden, or the King’s spymaster, or even the man she had called her friend. He looked like a portrait, or a sculpture; a perfect rendering of a man, beautiful and content, basking in the warmth of the sun and the happiness that came with going home - the sense of returning, the hard work finished. 

“Is that why you don’t work for The King any longer?” she said, still staring at him. His eyes opened and the bewitchment that had fallen on him for a few moments dispelled.

“I am retired,” was his reply, and his voice sounded not bitter, but resigned. The answer struck her with a pang of uncertainty, almost pain. Retirement was not a fate she could conjure for Fabien. A man like him would rather die, she thought. She would have believed that he  _would_ have died more readily. 

But, maybe, he was not the same man anymore. Maybe it was not only his leg that had been changed - reset.

“What happened?” she said, nearly breathless.

“An unfortunate run-in with a mallet,” he answered, knowing again that he was putting it mildly. His stomach dipped  at the memory of the maul wailing down onto his leg with phantom accuracy. He could see it so clearly, the great swinging thing coming back down again. His second to last thought before it impacted him the first time was it was such a stupid weapon to use in combat - why not use a bloody sword like any God forsaken person.

The last thought he had was that he was the greatest idiot he had ever known to let something like this occur and fall in the first place.

It went to show what he knew.

After the last blow (three in total) one of his guard had finally managed to put a stop to it and the creature that had been wielding the unholy thing splat blood, the end of the rapier jutting out of his gut. Fabien’s vision was swimming and he could barely keep track of where he was. By then his leg felt as though it had been liquified and he had never felt such a pain in all his life - a pain so overwhelming it was nearly euphoric.

He was certain he was going to die, grappling with the closing darkness and the sparks of white hot light simultaneously spotting his sensibilities. 

The agony of getting him to the attention of a doctor alone was enough to kill him. He’d called for Claudine through the hysteria, his own voice echoing back to him as he screamed _do not cut it -_

His brain had conjured all manner of images, fantastic and wild, in the fever that followed. Devils, angels, the dead haunting his bedside. 

In the end he’d been allowed to keep the leg - a miracle by every account and at times a grave inconvenience. It took months of building up his strength and suffering through the humiliation of being attended to. His leg resembled driftwood - gnarled and knotted, shining with scars - but with it splinted or assisted by a cane he managed well. He took to chewing willow bark until the grinding gave him a toothache. In the end it was clear to him that he would no be performing his duties any longer.

The King was gracious enough to allow him to tender his resignation, his hand on Fabien’s shoulder, squeezing it, eyes peering deeply into his eyes in their faerie way - not of this world. Too discerning. 

 _“You have been a great friend to me,”_ The King had said with the deadening sincerity only he could muster. _“I wish for you to live the life you have earned with your service in the name of that friendship. It has come at great cost to you, and I do not want you to ever forget what that means.”_

This was all to say that Fabien had been given a parcel of land attached to that which had been his Father’s half burned out house before the rebellions, a modest title, and a pension so large he nearly contested it.

“I’m sorry.”  
  
Fabien broke from the reverie at the sound of her voice. 

“It must be very difficult for you not to have your position.”

“ _Qualis pagatio, talis laboratio,_ ” Fabien said, translating. “What pay, what work.”

He did have a point, she thought. 

“What was it like at the abbey” she said timidly, hoping that it would not inspire any more of what she could only describe as teasing. He had gone some far place for a while, and she worried that he'd misjudged his own question and upset himself with the sickening memories of what must have befallen his leg.

“Humble,” he said, thoughtful. Images passed through his mind - stone hallways and torch light, stiff altars at which to kneel. The rough fabric of his clothes, of the monk’s frocks. Pages turning. Patient voices commanding him in reading and writing, the scriptures. “Strict,” he added, recalling the many acts of penitence, large and small. He prided himself on being a child who did not thrive on misbehavior, but his penchant for other more subtle discretion were often the subject of punishment. Arrogance, his meddling into the lives of others and the pilfering through forbidden places, the distraction of his sharp mind. The brothers, sympathetic to their charges, guarded their salvation closely and did not waiver nor fall victim to Fabien's attempts at negotiating his sins. It was where he had learned to be so steadfast. 

He did not hate them, even when he felt the sting of a lash or his hand cramped with writing scripture or when his forced solitude or hunger broke him. They had pulled him from the street, cleansed him of his wretched life as an urchin, and brought him into their fold. It was a species of love they gave, and he accepted it. 

“Did your parents want you to become a clergyman?” Sophie pressed, and Fabien shook his head calmly side to side. He could have been, he supposed, but that was not his destiny. 

There were other things that had learned in his time in the abbey - the smell of earth, and rain, and long walks in dense forests, coming to know the cruelty and grace of nature and observing the way man stood in relief against it. He spent many hours in the woodlands of Marche, and there he had uncovered the secrets of himself. He was a seeker, a hunter of truth and he would use any animal instinct or human sense he had to pursue it. It was only natural that he would align with the ideals of the King given the other circumstances of his life. He was to be the perfect object for his quiet revenge, as cunning and wise as he was deadly. 

“They were killed,” he replied after a while. “I was taken into the abbey after their death.”

“I didn’t know - the way you talk about your father…” she said, immediately recognizing how strange that sounded given the time and what had stretched between them. Fabien’s father, the printer, whom Fabien referred to now and again, commenting on the weight and quality of paper, or books, or other materials she gave no care for. She had always assumed the man had died, but not so much as _killed_. 

“He was a good man,” Fabien remarked. “He did not deserve what happened to him.”

Sophie could not stop herself from asking.

“What happened?” she said, sunlight filtering through the trees, dappling them both with shade. 

“He was murdered by Huguenots."

Sophie felt something bottom out underneath her and realized it was her heart.

 


	5. quatre

 

iv

 

  
*

 

“I suppose we are both orphans then,” Sophie said, her cheeks a little pale, her smile demure. It was a kind thing to say ; a leveling between the two of them, however morose or macabre the circumstances.

“It was very long ago,” Fabien replied.

He could sense the lurching need in her to say something more, which was unnecessary. He wasn’t looking for an apology from her.

He studied the road, the way it stretched far past his view, towards the horizon. Each time he traveled this path it was the same, only the surrounding wilderness shouldering the march of time and change. Trees fell, shed branches, leaves, were rotted, were gutted by pests. Animals beat down trails, grew, made offspring, met their ends.

Birds courted, nested, sang, fled, died. Vines that were not there before advanced, brush thickened in places and broke apart in others, rivers rose and fell and bowed. Life left its marks; the grooves of a boar’s tusk, the scattered skeleton of a rabbit, the tracks of a fox.

On this particular journey he recognized the nature of these things within himself, like they appeared on his own body. Not the scars physically acquired, but traces of other pains, experiences. Tree rings. Striation in rock. A diagram of his history. The death of his parents was among them, a memory to revisit, a moment he could look to, but nothing more. Like his leg, it didn’t occupy his thoughts unless he deigned to dwell in it.

This was not always the case; as a young man the grip of grief was strong, almost choking. He was voracious for the power of revenge, to feel his victory like a pile of bloody teeth in his hand.

He left the abby, shedding his names like skins.

It did not take him long to realize he could not punish every protestant nor dispel every mob; that was Sisyphean in task. It was far easier to train one’s abilities to the finest degree, to become a knife point so sharp it could cut through everything. He must look higher than the pit bubbling under Paris, he had to see over the heads of his compatriots at the Louvre.

Gone were the days of distraction, petty criminals and simpering fools. He was a defender of the King. Of his parent’s God.

But that time, too, had come to its closing. Another band in the same stone. He was no longer Fabien Marchal, inquisitor, inspector, spymaster to Louis XIV, faithful servant of France. He was _Seigneur_ _Fabien Michel Rene Marchal, Comte_ _de Cledeu_. Just that name had performed alchemy on his life and livelihood though he knew it was audacious and entirely beyond his measurement.

Things were not so separate. Appearances were superficial. A tree broken across the way did not change where it ended. The world of violence was also this world, with this long lonely road, its trees, its wind, and sun, and rain. He was a man, or a spymaster, or a Count, it mattered not. He was the same soul - with varying degrees of maturity. What goodness or evilness he possessed was only different in title from that of others; the substance was the same.

“I think I’ll call her Bisou,” Sophie said, her voice a little lighter, the urgent voice of a girl changing the subject. She was petting the mare’s neck.

He considered her, and once again it came - the longing to open her up, to see what glittered there. He did not see it in himself yet; her existence had been growing through his own like crystal in a cave.

He watched her toying with the horse’s mane, combing it through her fingers and braiding it roughly, strands weaving patiently one over the other.

 

* * *

 

As a place of strange transitions, and possessing quite a history of negotiation, the land was called _La Marche_ for good reason. Aptly named “borderland” from feudal days of old, the territory was long disputed - portions carved and striped under the flags of various families and interests - until it eventually fell to the House of Bourbon. After that it lay solemnly in the center of France like a great conflicted heart.

When viewing it on a map you could see the ancient upheaval of the Alps to the east and the Pyrenees to the south had wrinkled the country like a chair pushing a rug. The _Monts de Guéret_ were an offset of the more dignified _Monts de la Marche_ ; a hodgepodge of jutting granite and chaotic boulders thrown about like they’d been tossed by giants, later quarried to make the cobbled streets of Paris. The range arced like an apostrophe against the _Plateau du Limousin_ in the west, and wrapped like arms around the great _Chabrieres_ \- thousand upon thousand hectares of dense forest.

In the province’s northern crescent the two rolling valleys of the _Gartempe_ and the closer, more familiar, _Creuse_ , enfolded the city of Guéret, the rounded peak of _Puy de Gaudy_ looming in the distance and everywhere else trees. Trees, and trees and trees, and the scrapes hills, of mountains rising out of them, slashes of gray against the green tide.

Even the name Guéret betrayed it: a messy jumble of French, German, and L’Oc , a paradox that at once meant fallow and cultivated in a reflection of the lush and languished landscape.

Originally it was one solemn hut on the wastes serving as a monastery, but time watered it with a steady trickle of travelers - troubadours and settlers  - growing the humble brotherhood into the Church of Saint Pierre and Saint Paul.

Around it, like sprigs of weeds, rose the small but industrious hamlet, the eventual makings of a true town.

Elsewhere, the surrounding countryside was littered with the ancient monuments of roman conquest in the shapes of arched bridges and stone laundries and long abandoned baths attended by ghosts.

Outside the village proper, framed by uneven parcel of lands and the dense bocage cutting like veins across it, was the _Chateau du Marchal_.

The first thing Sophie noted when she saw it from its far distance, other than its largeness, and the neatness of its rendering , was the sound of water - some estuary of the Creuse was nearby, bubbling along in a rush that met her ears and carried with it the scent of woods - decay and moss.

The second thing she saw were red deer grazing on the front lawn. They raised their heads and their ears pricked towards the sound of the horses, but they made no move to leave. They looked on placidly for a few moments, tails wagging flies.

Fabien slowed them to a stop from a safe distance, holding out his arm slightly in front of her cautiously. Sophie watched his gloved hand point towards the tree line. A great stag was looming there, his eyes shining in the sunlight cast down through the branches. Sophie could see him breathing, the sound nearly audible while his great muzzle flared with each exhale. Wide strips of bloody velvet hung from his antlers like a shroud, the bone underneath a dull pink. His mane was beginning to come in, shaggy and silver-ish gray for winter.

Sophie had not ever seen such a beast up close and she knew tales of animals rushing at people. It was a reason she was told many times that the woods were no place for a lady and hunting the business of men.

The does chewed, watching the two of them.

“Isn’t it dangerous?” Sophie whispered, leaning forward a little. Fabien didn’t say anything immediately; he appeared unconcerned, which put her a little at ease.

“Shouldn’t you keep them off your property…” she continued, glancing nervously again at the huge animal, the gore surrounding it. Certainly it would look better cleaned up and on Fabien’s wall than out mucking on his land. But his land, she was understanding, was not so far apart from literal wilderness.

“He’s only looking after what is his,” Fabien said, finally, voice soft. “I have no quarrel with him...however, he is in rut,” he glanced sidelong at her, smirking.  

Sophie didn’t need him to define that, blushing.  

The stag made a loud noise, an indelicate sound somewhere between a snort and a huff and on cue, graceful as dancers, his harem steered towards the thicket and bounded away, out of sight in a shake of bushes and white flagged tails.

Sophie exhaled in relief, letting Fabien lead them on again, still looking at the dark edge of the forest that was so very close. Soon enough her attention turned elsewhere, as they were officially upon the house.

It was  long and rectangular, and made of pale granite - entirely symmetrical save that one half of the building’s face seemed to be slightly lighter in color than the other due to a variation to the stone. The grayer portion was covered entirely by a green veil of ivy that shuddered in the wind, shimmering with leaves. It had two identical rows of beautiful glass windows in neat casements, one upper set extending into the cornices with pointed dormers and the hipped roof falling behind, its rounded slopes like a sheet of marzipan. The front had a half moon drive which lead to the gabled door and a small, empty, tiered fountain, stood in the center with outcroppings of flowers and weeds and shrub nestled around its base.

On all sides was the sea of trees - chestnut, oak, beech, fir, the peeling paper bark of silver birch. Fabien, out of the desire for privacy, had not permitted the cutting back of anything more than necessary, and the forest seemed to test this limit every day - inching closer year by the year, making to swallow the house up, or reclaim it.  

Fabien stopped them in front, beside the fountain. From above Sophie could peer inside it, see the brown splotches of molding algae where rain water pooled on the inner basin and the dry stone cracked from lack of use, completely overrun by more ivy and other climbing plants. Parts were stained black, and sooty.

There was a clank as Fabien swung down off of Minos, and Sophie was too busy gazing around in awe at the estate to see him pat the animal and touch his forehead to his broad black muzzle.

She wondered what lay behind the house - what tangled gardens did Fabien grow? She thought she could smell a barn.

“Well done, old friend,” Fabien whispered, petting his neck with a grateful hand. Minos panted against his shoulder, nudging him impatiently. He was glad to be home, eager for rest and feed. Fabien moved closer to Bisou, reaching up to help Sophie down as a courtesy.

“This is all yours?” she said, breathless, feeling blindly for  his arms, too busy looking to pay attention. While it was not the estate of Cassal, it made the Caron’s house look cramped.

He could not answer, taking her weight in his grip, setting her safely on the ground. He held her for a moment, but she did not seem as unsteady today. She finally met his eyes, hands lingering on the solid feel of his forearms for a moment before sliding away.

“It’s quite impressive, for you at least,” she said sincerely, turning to look over her shoulder. She drew from him, walking around, gazing about.  

“Yes,” he replied, drawing himself up. He watched her tilt her head, looking this way and that. Her cloak had fallen and pooled around her shoulders, leaving the back of her neck exposed.

“Previously my father’s,” he amended, moving his eye to trace the line where the house had originally ended and had been extended by Louis’ insistence, expanding it by several rooms and a good deal of acreage. It had been burned out, and meticulously restored.

It was a point made by Louis, but he needn’t have bothered. Fabien had only the gauzy memories of childhood regarding the house he had once shared with his parents. What little original features remained reminded him of his mother, a sickly woman who had suffered in childbirth shortly after Fabien turned two - an unnamed sister dead when she entered the world. She was buried, somewhere, on this property, but Fabien had no sense of where. The marker was long destroyed, the ground trampled.

The violence of delivery and the stillborn left his mother a bleak and fragile thing in body and spirit. Her long dark hair always seemed to hang like a mantle around her, and she did not dress often, confined to her bed except on the rare occasion where unspoken forces roused her from her stupor. In those moments she would take his hand and walk him around the grounds, circling familiar spots and pointing out the struggles that all God’s creatures endured. Their blighted goat, a withered patch of vegetation, hens born with limp wings and bald patches.

Cruelties.

His father was slightly more optimistic, with a broad and charactered face and dark sensitive eyes. Fabien worshipped him.

The majority of Fabien’s memories were in town, at the print shop. He had learned to read watching them set the type, had learned to write scribbling on cast-offs.  The smell of wood pulp and ink. The squeal of the puller rocking the lever, the roll of leather boles together and the _crick_ of his father’s wrist as he stirred the vats and shook the water loose from the trays. He showed Fabien how each wood produced its own selective tones and quality, colors and textures. He’d let Fabien press wood violets into the wet sheets, to make cards on which his mother would detail her prayers. He held the new books in his child’s hands - so square, so perfectly made - and found them to be the most beautiful objects man could conjure, and he knew without being told that his father was more than a print maker, but a seller of enlightenment, and he must learn to watch very closely for one day it would be his greatest inheritance.

After work there was the dark cart ride back to the house with their large, unruly watchdog rumbling between the wheels beneath them. Fabien asleep in the back, with hay in his hair.

And, of course, there was one memory in particular that no amount of ivy could smother, nor new foundations bury.

The smell of smoke, and the echoes of panicked torch light, and voices  climbing in frenzied anger, and his mother, her stale breath against his ear, her thin skeletal arms around him, her body shivering violently as she clutched her beads in prayer.

His short legs flew as hard as he could make them into the cold green envelope of the forest, and a great wail rose up behind him, the scream of fire greedily eating the air - or a woman’s voice -

A voice warbled, like a ripple of water. The shade lifted, and he was no longer transported to that place. His eyes were fixed again on Sophie’s back, her cloak billowing in the wind that had picked up, pulling at her hair.

“You may go in,” he said, taking Minos’ bridle in his hand, grounding himself. “I will see to this…”

Sophie whirled on him, sunlight gleaming off of her face as if it were a jewel.  
  
“Did you hear me? I’d like to take a look round,” she started, coming towards him once more. There was concern in her eyes,  and Fabien felt his hand tighten on Minos’ bridle instinctively. He was about to disagree when the front door opened and a woman emerged, peering out from doorstep.

“Monsieur,” she said in a tight, humorless voice. “I did not expect you until sundown.”

Sophie turned, and was face to face with a woman, not as old as Madame Caron, but lingering somewhere in that department.

She was extraordinarily thin, with long elegant hands poised on the handle of the door and a ramrod straight posture, shoulders set back and her thin neck holding up her studious and narrow head. Her hair was neatly done, coif perched atop it, and her grey eyes looked past Sophie as though she was not there. She reminded Sophie immediately of an egret.

“Good evening, Madame Lafargue,” Fabien replied from behind her, with the horses. “The weather was good and we made good time.”

Madame Lafargue swiveled to look at Sophie, tracking her from her feet to the top of her head. She frowned.

“Mademoiselle de Clermont?”

Sophie felt a sharp pang of nerves. The woman was imposing, with the glare of a governess or a tutor, and already knowing her name weighed in her favor.

“Yes,” she said, forgetting herself, curtsying. Madame Lafargue looked back to where Fabien was beginning to lead the horses around the back of the house, out of their sight. She sighed, pushing open the door more, exposing the house’s shady interior.

“Inside, then,” she directed, curt, and Sophie hesitated, looking back even knowing Fabien was gone, abandoning her with the staid woman. “Don’t just stand there stupidly, girl!”

Sophie ducked her head, shuffling sheepishly inside. Lafargue shut the door with a great sound, not bothering to lock it behind her.

 

* * *

 

“I am Madame Lafargue, and you may address me as such,” the woman said, striding Sophie through the front entryway. It was large, with a set of wooden stairs facing the front of the house, leading up, but she did not take Sophie there, going  instead through a door that opened into the kitchen. It was very warm from the massive fireplace, and there was the ashy smell of the hearth and bread proofing on the scrubbed table, covered by a piece of cloth.

“The kitchen,” Madame Lafargue said pertly. “Pantry, buttery, cellar below, down there -,” she gestured. “Formal dining room and parlor are across the stairs,” she gave Sophie another once over, hands folding over her middle. “I serve three meals a day. If you miss one, then it is up to you to fend for yourself. Any particulars should be told to me before market day so I may make proper allocations.”

Sophie nodded dumbly up and down, still absorbing the idea that Fabien had a house such as this, let alone a housekeeper.

“Do you… you see to this all yourself?” Sophie said, glancing around the huge room, placing her hand over her stomacher out of habit.

Madame Lafargue seemed appalled, squaring herself in front of Sophie, looking down her nose.

“As Monsieur’s housekeeper and manager of all his household affairs any matters regarding are to be taken up with me, and me only, as he does not like to be troubled with trivialities and stupid questions,” she said, pointed. “ _And_ , I will tell you this only to appease whatever worries you may have over my service. I have raised six children, Mademoiselle, and one ungrateful husband, God Rest his soul. I _believe_ I can manage one rather spartan man.”

“I didn’t mean to be impertinent,” Sophie insisted. “I was impressed, this is… a grand house, and to have all your duties - it must be difficult…”

“ _Was_ difficult,” Madame Lafargue said, setting her jaw in such a way. “But now I seem to have you, don’t I?”

Sophie balked, her cheeks burning. She struggled a little, suddenly feeling the tax of the journey, but the woman’s words were as quick and unrelenting as her steps, and she did not provide any time to stop and catch her breath.

“The garden is behind the house. Kitchen garden out there, through that door, and immediately left,” she pointed beside the window over the large washing trough fixed to the wall. “The ornamentals and surrounding lawn are behind that, through the gate and between here and the stable. The remainder of the grounds are beyond that.”

“Monsieur’s rooms are on the top floor, with the exception of his study, which is not to be entered except with explicit permission. It is at the back of the house, facing south.”

“Certainly,” Sophie said, stilted, beginning to follow as Madame lead her through another door through a passing room that served as a scullery, and then suddenly turned down another shorter hall. She wondered if these were the rules that Fabien had created, or of the woman’s design, and found either to be possible.

Lafargue stopped so suddenly in front of a door that Sophie had to keep herself from clanging against her back.

She pulled a ring of keys from her apron, searching for one in particular. Sophie watched her, listening to their ringing, heart rate coming quicker. Was this it? The true beginning of her capture? Her palms began to sweat. Would she be locked up -

“I would insist that you do not go poking about upstairs, either,” Lafargue warned, giving her another shrewd appraisal after finding the key she desired.  She unlocked the door with a harsh _clunk_ of the tumbler and a heavy groan of the hinges as it opened.

The woman stepped inside, her voice following. “This is to be your apartment -,”

Sophie hesitated a moment at the threshold, knowing she was afraid. She tried to find the courage to at least look, and peeked around the door frame into what lay inside. Lafargue strode across it, parquet floor giving not even a squeak, opening the curtains wider to let in more light.

“It is out of the way, but Monsieur insisted on these rooms,” the tiny woman, who had seemed so thin and nearly frail, heaved up the heavy leaded panel of a sash window on the far wall. “A bit of air,” she muttered. “It has been shut up for a while.”

Sophie stared.

With the window open the damask drapes caught the wind, fluttering as Lafargue secured them with roped tassels to the wall. There was a sturdy carved oak bed, inlaid with scenes of trees and flowers and a few deer - fitting, as the window beside it, latticed and smaller than the one Lafargue had opened, faced the great spot where the does were grazing when they’d come upon the house and into the wood, bluish green and sparkling white bark and the threading hint of a stream through the foliage.  

The mattress was covered in white linen and a wool blanket in creamy yellow, simple, and good for the cool autumn nights. If that wouldn’t do, the brocaded curtains hanging round the bedposts would keep out the drafts.  One wall was papered in the same light green damask of the drapes, the rest the dark wood paneling of the rest of the house, one holding a tapestry so swarmed with figures and colors she could have spent hours sorting out the images.

“You can put your things in there,” Lafargue said, gesturing to the oak chest beneath the window. “There’s a closet through that door, for your privacy and any other personal effects.”

Sophie walked forward, staring at the assemblage. The stylish mahogany chair and toilette. A brass candlestick. A rushlight with a polished wood base. A delftware vase in startling blue and perfect white, begging for flowers.

“We will have to see about getting you more clothes,” she heard Lafargue say behind her. “Warmer, for winter - we get a good deal of snow.”

Sophie touched the edge of the blanket, not knowing what to say. These were not the lowly quarters of a maid, or a servant girl. She was not shut up in some cupboard, sleeping on a hay mattress on the floor.

“Madame, did he tell you -,” she felt her voice break slightly. “Did Monsieur indicate why he brought me here?”

She turned, searching the woman’s face desperately, mouth closed in a weak line. Lafargue twitched, and her harsh expression wavered. She let out a breath, now gazing at the girl with reserve.

“Monsieur explained that you were alone, at the mercy of a man of low character. He believed it was his duty to see that you were removed from such a situation, as a courtesy to your late mother.” She examined Sophie, clearly trying to determine just how much _mercy_ she had endured, judging her state.

“Did he...did he tell you who that man was?” Sophie said, trying not to sound so ashamed, standing in the square of light from the window. _Or that I killed him_?

“It is better to leave such men unmentioned,” Lafargue answered. “Paris is no place for a young woman, especially one alone in the world,” she furthered. “You will be much better off here.”

Sophie grimaced.

“Of course,” she conceded. She could tell Lafargue thought highly of Fabien. She appeared the prostrating kind. She wondered what the woman would think if she knew just how _close_ Fabien and and Beatrice had been, or the real arrangement between the two of them.

“ _Not_ that you will be idle,” Lafargue said briskly, and Sophie perked up at the words. “You are to attend to yourself and your character while you are here - there is no telling what habits you have acquired on  your own. I will assess your needlework and writing,” she seemed unimpressed already, and Sophie swallowed. “And train you in keeping track of the household, and assisting me.”

“And Monsieur?” Sophie asked.

“To him you should be very grateful,” Lafargue snipped. “He has agreed to act as your guardian until you are secured.”

“Secured? You mean -,”

“Guéret society is not as glamorous as Paris, nor that of Versailles, Mademoiselle, but it has its opportunities. Monsieur will make the proper introductions when he is convinced that you have passed the marks of a humble, modest lady. As your chaperone he will make sure that a good match is made.”

She waited for Sophie to respond, the girl’s face flitting through a panel of emotions. Eventually it settled into resignation.

“You have my thanks,” Sophie said tiredly, folding her hands in front of her in a gesture of earnesty. She bowed her head to Lafargue. “I will appreciate your advice, and help. It isn’t often one is offered such second chances.”

Lafargue hummed. The Mademoiselle was a fair thing, a bit scrawny, but she had good posture and an obvious air of fine upbringing. The idea that she had been lured out of Versailles by some derelict was believable. Some women were more susceptible to the lies of men. However, there were obvious gaps in the story that her master told.

Lafargue was loyal, but she wasn’t born yesterday. She had lived a good deal of life in her fifty years.

The explanation, which she’d taken without vocal comment or questioning, was odd, to say the least.

The Compte, alone, having no connections to anyone accepting this one person who was barely more than a child stuck out to her immediately. He spoke of no one else, no kin, no cousins, no friends.

During his interview of her he made mention of this fact with a kind of stoic humor; Lafargue’s duties, should she accept them, were simply to keep his home liveable, maintain his laundry, keep track of his pantry, make sure that he did not waste entirely away. It would be a mostly solitary existence for her, now widowed, her children long grown and gone. Her youngest son, Etienne, would see to the animals and keep the grounds, but otherwise it would be the two of them in their separate spheres.

He was, as he intimated sarcastically, retired to the country to live out the remainder of his days in pastoral inspiration.

It did not take long, perhaps a few months after her installment at the house,for Lafargue to become aware that this was not entirely the case. Instead of finding a wife and building a family to carry on his new legacy or even cultivating himself in solitude, he became embroiled in the finding of this girl.

He was like a man possessed, employing all the skills and tricks that he had no doubt acquired in his many years of law enforcement. Lafargue was never witness to any brutality from him, but she could tell from the darkness of his demeanor that at times he was extremely vexed, not talking for long expanses of time and refusing meals and finding little sleep. He left for days, weeks at a time, sometimes not returning for a full month while he made his inquiries.

When Lafargue finally cornered him it was because when he _was_ at home his pacing was keeping her up for hours and she was so tired she could barely keep track of her work. The man, to her surprise, had given in.

As she expected he told Lafargue very little. What more insight she gathered was scraped from his diaries and messy notations when he left them sprawled carelessly over his desk. Through this private investigation of her own she had pieced together that whatever place the enigmatic Sophie de Clermont held in his life, it was quite urgent.

In his own words he was compelled to find her in order to give himself peace of mind. Any less, and it would eat at him like wood rot.

She saw no issue with it, especially knowing that she was orphaned and - from Marchal’s telling - naive, but there was still the obvious fact that he was holding much at bay.

Paris was rather far, and a large place, but the effort employed in finding the mademoiselle was not proportional. It had taken nearly two years. In those two years she had grown to know him, his moods and tastes, and even a man as subdued as he couldn’t pretend away his passion for a woman who drove him to such ends.

She could not tell what he felt for her, yet, but it was clear it was a great deal more than _obligation_.  

“The way to thank me is by your behavior,” Lafargue said to the girl who was looking younger and meeker as the conversation wore on. She did not protest anything, but accepted whatever was said to her with only a look of disappointment, or, at times, bewilderment. Lafargue generously allowed her voice to soften just a little, the way she did with her own daughter. “Just mind what I tell you and you’ll have no cause for worry.”

 

* * *

 

Sophie did not see Fabien again that day, nor for the rest of the night.

Fabien was prone to his moods, Lafargue informed her, watching her take spoonfuls of rabbit stew at the long table in the kitchen when darkness had fallen. Sophie did not bother to tell her that she knew very well the mercurial nature of Fabien’s temperament, how sometimes his eyes were sparked with unnamed emotion, his mouth taught with excitement, and others he seemed entirely without feeling, sullen as a grave.  

Instead, she looked at the ceiling, listening for the creak of his steps over the beams, but none came. She listened in her bed, as well, curled around her pillow, looking up at the canopy, hearing only night birds in the wood. An owl called its mate for what felt like hours, mournful and a bit scary in the unfamiliar dark, its partner sounding from far away. There was no stirring from the floor above.

Sophie didn’t mind, eager for the privacy to explore. Morning dawned, and Lafargue came to help her dress but soon became busy with her own tasks, finally leaving her on her own and Sophie didn’t waste time before poking about wherever she could. Fabien’s house was sparse, but not without its finery, and she catalogued each object like a diligent student.

It came to her as no surprise that the majority of Fabien’s curios were the grim and strange sort. The King and his visitors were always doling out oddities, and perhaps over the course of his life others had come to him with such gifts in order to win favor with him. That, or by his own morbid curiosity, Fabien had acquired the little trove of treasures spread around his home on various shelves and cabinets: feathers, shells, stones and animal skulls. He had a great heavy magnifying glass, and a miniature globe that illustrated the sprawl of heavens; there was the strange dried corpse of a funny horse-like fish, and the rough-root-like tangle of red coral; pretty vials, jugs, and vases of many descriptions, a silver bell, a silver chalice. He had a modest collection of art - primarily landscapes - but possessed a keen eye for tapestries, such as the one in her room, or the one spread on the wall of the main parlor, which depicted a gruesome and triumphant Roman victory, all horses and chariots and broken arrows.

Most austensibly, Sophie found, were the books. There was even a small case made specifically for them out of the way in one corner, far from decaying light. They were in great quantity and in all matter of languages; judging by the care he took with them and the variations in their construction and designs, she came to the conclusion that they may have been rare, or at least very unique.

Sophie wandered the downstairs, inspecting the little rooms and passages, and looking at the closed door she knew was Fabien’s study. She slid her eyes around - Lafargue was still in the kitchen, stirring her cauldron, and there was silence from upstairs. She tried the handle, finding it unlocked, and she smiled triumphantly, easing it open a sliver.

Fabien looked up from his chair, pipe in his mouth, book in hand.

He withdrew the instrument from his lips, puffing smoke, letting the book tip back, a page wrinkling. He was seated with his legs crossed up on his desk, in only linen shirt and vest, which was open. He regarded her from where she was statuesque, frozen, at the door. He must have come down when she did not notice, or during the night while she was asleep.

“Yes?” he said, staring at her with that cattish amusement she was becoming too familiar with.  

“I - I’m sorry, I thought this was my room -,” she stuttered. He made a sound of approval, adjusting his book again.

“Shall I have Lafargue draw you a map?” he said to the pages.

“No,” she began, her nosiness getting the better of her, making her look into his domicile for as long as she could before he told her to go. It had the same atmosphere as the rest of the house, but it was clear that Fabien kept most of his favorite belongings close to him.

“You make me nervous, Mademoiselle. Don’t hover.”

Sophie jerked a bit, and then, not wanting to miss the opportunity, did as she was told.  She felt his eyes on her while she perused.

“Is that...real?” she said timidly, looking at a yellowed skull, the dome of it spangled with river-like fissures and one eye socket cracked.

“Yes,” he said simply, not looking up, the pipe back in his mouth and mumbling the word. She bit her lip, worrying it, wondering if it had been a person who unwittingly found themselves in Fabien’s way, or some poor stranger. She decided that, truthfully, she would rather not know.

She looked at the cubbies stuffed with scrolls, at the maps and diagrams tacked to his walls, the assortment of his possessions. There was a large window facing the gardens directly behind him, throwing light down onto his desk, hazing his outline. Dust shimmered around his hair like a halo, and the gold leaf on the book flashed at her in a streak when he turned a page.

Carefully, she walked around his desk and chair, arms behind her back to resist the urge to reach out and disturb his menagerie, peering skillfully over his shoulder at the book. Latin, again, she discovered with irritation. He shifted in his seat, clicking his teeth over his pipe in concentration, the smell sweet and swooning in the cramped room. Her eyes fell upon the creases of his breeches on his lap and she quickly diverted her attention, moving to the window sill.

“And what has your inspection yielded?” he said, breaking the silence, turning a page.

“What are those trees,” she asked, looking at the cluster she could see over the wall that kept vermin out of the kitchen garden. “It’s like the Orange grove,” she added, referring to the neat rows.

“Pear,” he answered. “Questche. I believe a persimmon.”

“Questche?” she said brightly, looking more closely. “I do like Quiterie.”

“Do you now.”

Another rustle of paper. His voice was rough from the smoking.

“The Chevalier de Lorraine introduced me to it,” she said. “We drank it hot, like coffee,” she continued, remembering the sweet plum brandy, dark purple and swirling, the perfect silken sensation of it.

Fabien did not comment, absorbed in the contents of his book. She stood in the sun, looking at the garden. It was still in the early stages of taking, with only a few years of cultivation, but it appeared to be doing well. There was an abundance of greenery still.

“Are there flowers?” she queried, and instead of answering she heard the scrape of his chair, the thump of the book being set down on his desk. He stood, coming behind her at the window, and Sophie stiffened, sensing how near he was. His elbow stuck out where his hand rested against his hip, pushing his vest back. The pipe smoke filtered around her.

He pointed, his arm over her shoulder, caging her in.

“There,” he traced the line across the glass, where there was nothing but bare bed now and a few shrubs. “There,” another. “Lilies, tulips, gardenia, I forget the rest.” 

There was something to his voice that made her feel as though he wasn't being entirely truthful. Fabien was a master of detail - she doubted he did not know what was planted in his own field.

He pointed to a hedge that hid an additional path with the mouthpiece of his pipe, exhaling.

“Roses, in the summer.”

Sophie understood that she was holding her breath, but it was not because of the scent of the tobacco, or the way it seemed to surround her.

“How lovely,” she murmured. Feeling him shift, his arm so close to her it nearly brushed her back. She could sense the way he was looking at her now, but she dared not look.

“You should have Etienne show you,” he trailed, sounding bored and irritable. Sophie swallowed, listening to him move away, returning to his seat.

“Etienne?” her voice was thin, and she knew he would be able to detect it.

“Lafargue’s son. He keeps the grounds for me.”

“Oh,” Sophie answered, feeling a bit out of sorts. He’d smelled like sleep, and that smoke, and something else. Bergamot? Maybe a sachet of something was in the room. She was constantly surprised by how warm to the touch he was - running so hot, when one would imagine that he would be more reptilian and quite cool.

“He’s young, and quite common,” Fabien droned. “You would enjoy him.”

Sophie shook the stupor off, glaring at the window now at the rudeness of the comment.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” She sniped, turning on him. He was sounding tricky, and she did not trust his sudden shift in tone.

“I remember you having a proclivity for sturdy men,” Fabien continued, the words so loaded it was as if he swung at her with a bat.

Sophie fumed.

“I have no care for a man’s occupation,” she said tartly. “But the contents of his heart. Something you would know nothing about.”

“Builders, and Dutch Spies, yes,” Fabien continued, cold as winter. "I am wounded to not be counted among them."  
  
She could not keep up with him, with the whims of his treatment of her and suddenly she felt a wave of fury crash into her. She’d let herself be charmed by the illusion of his kindness, like a little fool.

“I did not ask you to rescue me!” Sophie shouted, suddenly, the words erupting from her mouth in a shameless yell. “I did not ask you to come and _collect_ me like one of your horrible trinkets just so you could prod at me for your own pleasure. _Yes_ I am no saint, but you are not so wise - you do not know my every thought, nor feeling. You may have that woman fooled with your false intentions, but I know what you are capable of -,”

“Watch your tongue, girl,” Fabien said loudly, dark as thunder. She stopped speaking, immediately feeling tears come to her eyes, his outburst and her own boldness frightening her. Though he did not face her, he sat up in his chair, his head raised, book abandoned.  

“Do you think it is generous of you? To keep me here with you? It’s a punishment!”

“Then you’ve earned it,” Fabien snapped, and Sophie felt the burning tears on her face. She’d been so proud of herself, having not allowed one tear to fall, but now she had ruined it by showing him her weakness.

She whimpered, trying to hold back a sob, her stomach heaving against the constraints of her stays. The room was so small. That pipe, pouring out smoke, the same way that Cassal’s did - his yellowed teeth, and how close he was, and she felt as if the whole world was on top of her, could feel him panting his acrid breath in her ear.

“Put out that ghastly pipe! It is a disgusting habit!” she cried at his back, and seeing him make no move, she let out another choked sound and stomped out of the room, tears streaming down her face.

“What in God’s name,” Lafargue said, having heard the noise and coming up the hall, grabbing her by the shoulders.

“Let go of me!” Sophie shouted, wrestling away from the woman.

“Mademoiselle,” Lafargue squawked, but Sophie yanked herself back.

She heard Fabien slam the door to the room shut and she seethed, pushing away from the scene, fumbling through the chambers of the house till she erupted out into the garden, into the fresh air, stalking out of the gate and into the green square where those damned trees stood.

The trees, up close, seemed weak and sickly - as though they had not been able to acclimate to the climate or the trauma of being uprooted and placed here.

She tried to breathe in the air, gulping it, but all she could do was cry, her shaking hands covering her face

The world shimmered, a mirage, a strange and empty fairyland. 

“Maman,” she wept, her legs shaking under her skirt, her voice high and broken. “What has happened?”

There was, of course, no answer.

 


	6. cinq

v

 

*

 

Sophie stared down at the canvas stretched over the frame in front of her, the needle making sharp _pock_ sounds as she jabbed it in and out. She was in the midst of constructing a rather enormous, elaborate snake: its viperous fangs protruding from its open maw like two daggers, the rest of it trailing around the square of linen in a harum-scarum series of coils and curls.

At first she was worried she hadn’t the talent to create it, but soon she realized that a snake wasn’t so unlike a vine, and she had more than enough experience making leafy tendrils and circuitous branches to lay the foundations of the creature with relative ease.

Now it was beginning to take on real shape and she found it delightfully ugly, scaling it in green and brown and sometimes yellow here and there, or blue, if she felt like it. When she grew tired of the tedious process of making its lizardy skin she defaulted to filling in the gaps with what Lafargue deemed more _appropriate_ interests - flowers, and fruit, and other bored shapes.

Lafargue sat beside her, a pile of mending at her feet and strewn across her lap, glancing over every now and then to survey Sophie’s work. Sophie didn’t know what pleased her more, Lafargue’s disgust with the subject or her inability to comment because of the quality of her stitching.

“An... excited image,” the woman said, snipping a loose thread on a piece of cloth she was piecing back together with click of scissors.

Sophie didn’t reply, thinking of how this would certainly be the crowning top on a casket piece. She could divine other creatures to make up the sides and bottom and the thought made her giddy. Maybe a big rude looking bull, or something more exotic - like a Chinese lion dog or a dragon.  

It would be terrifically hideous and she planned on putting it somewhere very visible; preferably the dining table between the two candles. That way she wouldn’t have to look at Fabien when she ate with him, but instead at her odd menagerie.

For several days following their outburst their only exposure to each other was at night, when Lafargue forced them out of their respective hideaways to share a meal. Every evening Sophie was sat in a chair to endure Lafargue combing her hair and shuttling her into her nicer frock just so she could pick listlessly at her food in dismal silence.

Fabien was strange when he ate, even in what Lafargue deemed a more formal setting. He used his hands a great deal (which was unsurprising), shredding meat with his fingers and bringing it to his mouth in small snatches. When he consented to using utensils his motions were unhurried and required much of his apparent attention, his expressions varying from vague to determined dislike at others - especially when Lafargue placed things of a more green and gardened variety before him. Regardless of that obvious distaste he never hesitated to clean his plate, which often took a torturous amount of time.

Sophie was, of course, captive until he was finished. It was what led to her rather sagacious observation of him as there was nothing else to do. She would have rather died than say one word to him after the way he spoke to her, and judging that he had no qualms nor intentions of apologizing for his brutish behavior neither did she.

Not that she was malcontent to simmer in her anger and keep it like a little pet, fattening it with every haughty look she gave him and other various pettiness - leaving when he entered a room, looking away when _he_ looked at _her_ , keeping cloistered to herself and otherwise acting as though his presence had no affect on her whatsoever, etc. etc.

Already she’d endured hours of having her embroidery graded and her rather tremulous singing voice appraised and her calligraphy evaluated without a whisper of complaint, if only to spite him.

She was, however, annoyed that no matter how much she attempted to stave it off with busy work or wandering or simply being vexed that her mind always crept towards him. There was no one else, after all.

The only other steps she heard around the house were his stilted ones,  quick then slow, accompanied at times by the soft _thunk_ of a cane if he was using it. She had no idea how he managed the stairs as well as he did, and that alone generated a good deal of consideration when her thoughts started wandering.

He rose early some days, and others not till late, the same with when he retired for the night. He disappeared for hours on end to his study or often to the woods where he brought back sacks of gritty mushrooms and snared rabbits and other times returned with nothing at all except the smell of the outdoors and a vacant expression.

He devoted much time to reading, smoking, and being irreparably gloomy by Sophie’s determination, hovering about the house like a raincloud tethered indoors. Even with a higher income to dispose of the man only wore muted colors and coarse heavy wools, if he even bothered to wear a full coats at all. On days when the wind picked up he did favor a short jacket that he seemed to have owned for some time, and Sophie mocked relentlessly in her mind for being distinctly out of fashion.

When he was not doing this he was eating:  taking things now and then throughout the day so that he was rarely seen somewhere without a bit or morsel beside him or on his person. She couldn’t imagine where he put it - his body used up all its energies quickly and he never gained a pound. She even spied him in the garden hacking at a rind of cheese with a small knife and glowering at the grass while he chewed.

An obsession with keeping rabbits and rats out of the vegetable patch, she learned after probing Lafargue. The barn cat turned up dead some months ago and Fabien, _fainéant_ , had no plans to acquire a new one.

This was the man who objected to _her_ taste, even if it was over lovers. His words stung her again and again with every revisitation and the pain came, along with embarrassment. It wasn’t that she believed herself beyond reproach, but he had no decency to even feign caring, and he’d turned on her so quickly it could have snapped her neck. She did not need him to point out follies. She didn’t need him to make clear how stupidly she entreated men to love her, despite her better judgements. Her foolish longing to belong _somewhere_ , to have _someone_ had piloted her for so much of short life. How could he possibly understand, to know she was groomed from birth to be a bride.

She wasn’t so ignorant anymore - she could tell him all about her formal education with Cassel on the cruelties of men, the realities of nature, but there was a deeper sense that even _he_ would have no stomach for that and it was her knowledge to bear alone. What he suspected was only what he could guess. He hadn’t even been at the palace for the majority of her marriage.

When they asked who objected during their union Cassel had turned over his shoulder, and for so long Sophie had dwelled over the action, agonized over it. Did he think the King would suddenly yank her out from under him? That perhaps the Madame de Montespan would work her magic on the situation and cast down retribution?

She wouldn’t dare herself to look. She knew there was no one, and only silence ringing through the Chapel, overwhelmingly loud to her own ears, buzzing like bees in her head. Fora  split moment she thought, maybe, someone unexpected may arrive.

There was no one. No one at all.

 _They say he stood by the grave of his lover for days_ … _that’s where they found him_ ...   
  
The whispers of the court rising to her ears like the churn of sea foam when he eventually returned, how the sick feeling rose in her, the pain concentrated in the center of her, in a muscle she’d never used - how she could not even bear to look at his face for so long. There were other times when she felt compelled to blurt to him the truth, about how with every drop of poison she gave Cassel her own heart was falling into ruins.

Unbelievable, that she had mourned losing him then. Had thought that, at least, if he was there that someone would shield her, that his physical presence would give her even a degree of comfort. Even his hideous dedication to Louis, his inability to stand up for her, was more  forgivable than what Cassel doled out.

“I would prefer a cat,” Sophie said out loud to herself and the empty room when Lafargue left to see to something in the kitchen. She plucked away at the image in front of her with a bit more force than necessary.  “Or even a snake.”

 

* * *

 

“Is she awake?”

Lafargue gave Fabien a look of surprise, turning away from the oven, wiping her forehead.  

“Yes,” she said evenly, smacking her hands on her apron, lifting white plumes of flour from it. Fabien loomed just in the doorway, a stark black spot against the blue-ish lime washed walls. “She woke up a few hours ago, and is studying,” she added, for good measure.

Fabien said nothing, but walked over to the table, exploring the grain of it with his hand. Lafargue watched him, her mouth pursed.

“I know it isn’t my place to comment -,” she began, watching Fabien scowl at the wood.

“It is not,” he told her, but Lafargue waited only a beat before continuing and he made no other gesture to stop her.

“I have noticed that perhaps this arrangement is not entirely what you had anticipated.”

Fabien said nothing, rubbing his thumb over a scratch in the table’s top, still frowning.

He turned from the table, circling it instead, taking stock of the room - copper pots, kettles, instruments for cooking of various design. In all honesty, he had no idea where half of it had come from, or was used for, having left the task up to Lafargue a long time ago. The smell of bread beginning to bake was filling the air and soon would permeate the rest of the house.

He could feel the housekeeper’s keen eyes on his back and the beginnings of a headache.  

“Speak your mind, Gaetane ,” he said, touching a ladle and watching it rock back and forth, clanging against something else.

“My Lord, you are a man of high ideals.”

He heard her sit at the other end of the table, perched on the long wooden bench, taking up some task while she spoke.

“Ideals are stones upon which we build ourselves, but those stones also build walls over which we cannot see if we are not careful.”

Fabien walked a few steps down the length of the table, picking up a rag left out and setting it down with a disappointed sound. He could see now that she was shelling beans into a wooden bowl, her deft hands making quick work of the chore. She felt him come closer and looked up through a few wisps of graying hair swept over her forehead.

“And what, pray tell, do you mean by that?” he said, peering down at the bowl. He plucked a pea from inside it and looked at it, tossing it back in.

“I _mean_ ,” the woman said, moving the bowl out of his reach as though he were a fussing child. “That she is just a young girl,” she set her elbows up on the table, affixing her eyes upon him. She wasn’t scolding, Lafargue wouldn’t be so bold, but she was certainly choosing her words and deliberately excluding others.

 _You’re a grown man,_ primarily.

He was well aware that he had acted with even less grace than usual picking such a ridiculous fight with Sophie. He did not need Lafargue to point out that her age and unpredictable moods when compared to his own made it all the more uncouth. He wouldn’t admit that the moment he’d closed the door on her his anger dissipated into abashment. He spied from the window, watching her shoulders hitch till Lafargue bustled across the yard and bundled her in a shawl and took her inside and wrestled with an unbearable guilt and confusion with himself.

She was sent back to bed for the remainder of the day until she regained her composure, and Lafargue stiffly apologized on her behalf, a generous gesture considering the old woman’s eyes were narrowed on him with suspicion. It was clear she had heard at least enough of the upset to resolve her own opinion.

He’d vowed that Sophie’s arrival would not change the flow of things - the woman was right to be vexed.

It wasn’t his intention to let his temper get the better of him, and usually he had a firm grasp on his own disposition. Every step of the journey between here and back he had calculated to the finest degree, checking the color of his attitude at every mile, but the moment he returned he found that he had neglected - in all his scheming - to consider the very practical notion that now they were _in fact_ under the same roof.

Their arrangement, their new and very immediate proximity to one another, found her able to intrude upon him without much defense on his part. At first he thought nothing of it, but as he felt the impression of her grow, the overstimulating waterfall of soft sounds and textures she brought, there was  an urgency to expel her.

He’d attacked as the body might, or so Claudine would say, to purge a toxin, a foreign entity. At the time it overcame him like an involuntary experience.

Unfair, true, but what he was supposed to do standing there beside her and pantomiming phantom flowers against the tedious sprawl of his land. He felt foolish, like he was attempting to impress her - not just impart the facts.

Surely she found it laughable, which was why he was quick to divert attention to the more obvious gaps in her character when the opportunity presented itself.

Fabien worked his jaw, restlessly picking up a knife to test its balance in his hand. He dropped it point down into the block it was resting on with a loud _thunk_.

“This needs to be sharpened,” he said quickly, prying it out and doing it once more for good measure.

“Of course, sir,” Lafargue said. “I’ll be sure to speak to someone about it.”

 

* * *

 

Sophie picked listlessly at her food as she had for several nights, pushing it around on her plate. She was slumped slightly back in her seat, but not enough to get Lafargue’s attention or earn a tap on the back of her chair. If Fabien noticed her posture he didn’t seem interested in pointing it out, either.

She sighed, taking a bite finally, chewing it with boredom. Mutton again. Lafargue hustled about, bringing out more wine and clearing courses as they finished, Fabien only lifting his head to nod at her.

“Lafargue,” Fabien said, and the woman appeared holding the decanter. Fabien held up his hand, leaning back in his chair. “Are there any plans for the Mademoiselle tomorrow morning?”

Sophie’s fork stopped halfway through her mouth and she gently set it down, wrist resting on the edge of the table.

These were the first words she’d heard him speak in days and she wasn’t even addressing her.  She chewed and swallowed the food in her mouth, not daring to take more just yet.

Lafargue held the decanter back, considering the question.

“I had wanted to work on her calligraphy,” Lafargue said and Sophie groaned internally. There was nothing she could conceive of being more tortuous than more _tutoring_ from Lafargue.

“No need,” Fabien said, and Sophie looked at him in confusion. He met her eyes, and they were not the hard eyes she had been seeing as of late; they were animated now, thoughtful. He stroked the napkin in his hand absently, breaking her gaze. “She has excellent penmanship…”

Sophie’s tongue prodded at the back of her teeth nervously.

“I see,” Lafargue said. “If that is the case, then I do not have another lesson planned for her. She would be left to her own devices.”

“I would like her to attend an errand with me,” Fabien said, folding the linen and laying it neatly next to his plate. “If she is willing,” he looked at Sophie from across the long, narrow leafed table they were seated at and she was shocked to see that he hid no agenda that she could find in his expression. It was perfectly reasonable, awaiting her response.

Lafargue turned to her expectantly and Sophie’s mouth twisted while she thought.

“It would depend upon the errand,” she said, picking her knife and fork up, cutting a sliver of something, attempting to appear guileless.

“There is a farm nearby,” Fabien explained. “An hour or so ride. I am interested in its produce.”

“And why does that require me?” Sophie countered, still looking at her plate. “Certainly you do not desire my company...”

“Mademoiselle -,” Lafargue hissed, and Fabien held up his hand to still her railing.

“I believe the scenery to be pleasant,” Fabien said. “And the weather fair. And I believe that you will find it quite enjoyable and even of particular interest to you.”

She finally chanced to look at him again and found a reticence settled on him, a coy sort of hopefulness.

“You are under no obligation to agree,” he said, finally. “You may remain here, to do whatever it is you do. Needlework and the like. You’ve become quite diligent.”

His eyes flashed and he rubbed the edge of the table casually with his fingertips.  “Your work reflects an excited imagination...”

Sophie gripped her knife a little harder, not responding, letting the tense silence punish him.

“I would hope that it isn’t a reflection of any animosity between us,” Fabien said, and his voice was so changed that Sophie was compelled to look up at him. He was staring intently at her, and she felt her own mouth part and then close again wordlessly before she purposefully reached for her wine glass.

She saw Fabien’s shoulders rise, and his hand twitch on the edge of the table where it still rested.

“I know…”

Sophie watched him over the rim. He seemed to struggle, eyes glancing around in a foundless search.

“...I was indelicate, previously,” he said. “In my remarks to you.”

She took another drink, setting the glass back down.

“It was not the way a man of my age should conduct himself.”

He looked at her, now, and she shifted, sitting up finally in her chair. It was hardly an apology, and if it was meant to be an explanation it was a poorly constructed one - it made no measure of his own position in the argument. She fidgeted with her hands in her lap, out of his sight, feeling for breaks in her nails.

“It’s all I wished to say, and my offer still stands,” he finished, taking in her silence, and with that he grasped the arms of his chair, making to push back and leave.

“I want you to tell me, clearly,” she said, and he froze, easing himself back down to give her his attention. She made a study of his face, knowing what she was going to say was the only time she would let herself say it. “That I do not have anything to fear from you.”

The words left her mouth, hovering over the table and propelling forward so that she saw them reach him in real time, could see the clicking turn of his mind over them.

“I can forgive your inability to be pleasant,” she continued, sighing loudly and pulling her own napkin up to pluck at it with her hands. “Or your harshness, or argument, or whatever else makes you up. And,” she took a breath. “Perhaps you are right to judge me, of all people.” She dropped her napkin back into her lap in a messy rumple.

“But I will not live with a blade hanging over my head, not knowing what you mean to do with me. I have already lived a life being terrorized by a man,” she looked him in the eye, and he did not flinch. “I won’t do it again,” she whispered. “I won’t. So if you truly intend to imprison me here, even if you believe I deserve it, I would rather meet whatever destiny the world offers.”

Fabien was stone still, not even blinking. Candle light bathed his features in trembling warm light, making it indecipherable if she was imagining the bewildered softness of his face or not. She wondered what he saw when he looked up on her, if he could see her honestly in the same flame. If he could hear the way her voice wavered with the shiver caught on the wick, shook dangerously close to falling apart.

“You have my word,” Fabien said. “I do not wish any harm on you. Not that exceeds what the world gives us all, in our turn.”

His words, while deadpan, did not have the tone of someone trying to lie. It rang of the unspoken promise that had existed between them - that strange bond she would rely on, because sitting there, listening to him prattle on the way men did, it occurred to her that he’d never raised a hand to her, even though he raised his voice - and it was not so characteristic of him to become so impassioned, anyway. He had not even bothered her.

All that time she’d spent bent over her canvas, patiently picking together a strange serpent, a demonish thing, watching it grow more complicated and more tangled and more snarled. She was content to spend hours working on it, so she not afraid to be here, in this house.

She was terrified that he had transformed into that monstrous creature, one she knew very well in its demeanor. That it inhabited him now, his skin, and his substance, making him alien and horrifying and preying on her, waiting to strangle her slowly, with use of all his devices.

He knew, once, that she did not have an evil heart - a murderer’s heart.

She knew,  with certain relief, that he was not free of imperfection but he was not the same as that abomination.

If he was offering her a second chance, as Lafargue said, then she would offer him one as well.

“Then I will believe you,” she replied. Seamlessly, she picked up her wine glass once more, tilting her head and bringing it to her dry mouth. “What is this errand?” she said, curious.

His face twitched.

“A farm -,”

“What does it grow?”

“It is not the crop I am interested in,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m looking to get a dog.”

“A dog?” she nearly coughed it, covering her hand with her mouth as she swallowed. “And this is of interest to me?”

Fabien sat back,  turning one of his rings on his finger.

“I believed that you would benefit from one, as a companion,” he glanced at her. Lafargue had arrived, taking their plates away, and Sophie did not miss the flush in the old woman’s face, the bright sparkle of light in her eyes that she could not mistake for anything but tears. She cleared her throat to cover the clank of silver and Fabien’s gaze followed the sound. “As I am not the ideal,” he furthered.

“What sort of dog,” Sophie said, finding herself smiling a little.

“Bassets,” Fabien said.

Sophie thought of him, in the garden, staring at the dirt, that concerned and irritated face he made.

She folded her hands under her chin, elbows now free to rest on the table.

“I’ve heard they’re good for rats,” she said, tilting her head at him.

Fabien looked up, and his mouth curved into a handsome half moon smile that made her wonder where he had hidden it. Her body was warm from the wine, she thought, and they were somewhat friends, and there was always a good agreeable feeling when one was relieved the way she was, and that was why it was so striking, and why she found herself immediately, instinctively, smiling back - the way she did when any other man might give her that look.

“I’ve heard that as well,” he said softly, looking like he had not seen something for a very long time.

 

* * *

 

They were fat as eclairs, a squirming whirl of long-bodied puppies ecstatic at their arrival in the farmer’s barn.

“What darlings,” Sophie cooed in delight, looking at the way they lined themselves up on one of the boards penning them into the corner of an empty stall, straw sticking to their long ears and patched and freckled fur.

Their mother lay listlessly against one end of the whelping box, her whip like tail thumping on the floor as she licked her chops with a low whine of gratitude to be left alone for a moment. She turned over her shoulder to where Fabien was coming up behind with the farmer - an old, graying man with a large bald spot he covered with a cap.

“Anyone I like?” she said, and Fabien came to a stop a foot away from her, glancing over her back into the swarm.

“If it’s reasonable,” he considered, giving the puppies a once over.

The farmer grinned a gap-toothed smile at her, stepping boldly over the edge of the box.

“A good litter,” he complimented. He bent down, assessing his brood and scruffed two, holding them up to her. “Good temperments for a lady, gentle,” he said, showing them to Sophie and then thrusting them out to where Fabien could see better. “ _Femelle_ ,” he nodded and Fabien blinked sullenly at them.

“Which one is the most intelligent,” he said, stepping slightly closer. “It needs to be useful...”

Sophie tutted, now crouched down to pet the ones that were still clamoring at her over the edge of the pen.

“Nonsense,” she sang, smiling at their winking eyes and the insistent kisses of their tongues. One was crying loudly to get closer to her and she rounded its wrinkled face with her hands to stroke down its muzzle and the incredible softness of its blonde head.

“You are perfect just as you are. Your ears are just like velvet,” she smiled, playing with the long ends of it, giggling as the puppy whined and lapped at her wrists and her arms, its torso twisting so that it clumsily slipped and had to right itself and return to her several times.

“Oh, _le bouffon,_ ” The farmer laughed. “Like his sire, strong, good nose but,” he tapped his own head and shook it side to side with a laugh. “Not much.”

“Clumsy fellow,” Fabien muttered, watching him stumbling over himself to get to Sophie. “Though he is big...”

“His brother is a bit bigger, but,” the farmer took his cap off and scratched the top of his head. “I have promised him to my son.”

Fabien nodded in understanding.

“He really is just delicious,” Sophie giggled. “Can I hold him?”

“Let me, Mademoiselle,” the old man insisted, picking the puppy up and placing it gently into her lap. Her chin tilted back as the puppy gave her crazed licks on her neck, vying for her mouth, his tail wagging wildly. He wormed around in her arms making funny piggish grunts and snuffling into her neck. Sophie laughed, trying to placate him, the farmer smiling happily and chuckling.

“He likes you, _non_?” he wheezed.

“You will need a bath,” Sophie scolded, the puppy beginning to calm a little, still licking at wherever he could reach of her face. He sneezed and she winced, but was not deterred, rubbing at his pink belly and admiring the marmalade colored splotches that made up his coloring.

“I believe that’s the one we will take,” Fabien sighed, shaking his head.

“A fine choice,” the farmer said. “Your daughter has good taste…”

Fabien stiffened, hand stopped midway to reach for his purse. Sophie, too distracted with the puppy to hear the comment, was busy showering the clownish dog in affection and did not sense his discomfort.

“She is not my daughter,” Fabien said rigidly. 

“My apologies, and no offense intended,” the farmer replied, bowing slightly to step out of the box, leaving Sophie still kneeling in the hay. She had set the puppy down and was watching its duck-footed legs romp around, chasing a strand of straw that she waved back and forth. "She is a lovely thing."

Fabien said nothing in return for a moment, holding his purse slyly in his hand, coins sliding around inside.  

“Now, concerning the price, with guarantee that this dog can at least _find_ a rat,” he began, walking with the farmer out of the barn, Sophie’s laughter floating up into the rafters like a swallow.  

 

* * *

 

Sophie trailed a ribbon back and forth over the puppy’s nose, watching him snap at it, her tongue caught between her teeth while she watched. He pounced and rolled, given to becoming distracted and snuffling around the room at any moment, following some scent none of them could detect.

Fabien was splayed in a chair, watching the dog with his fist against his temple, trying to discern how exactly he could shape such a silly animal into being even the semblance of a hunting dog. His nose did seem responsive, but as the farmer spoke - he was perhaps not the most agile in either mind nor body.

“Does it have a name?” Lafargue said, looking down at the puppy where it played on the rug. She poked at the fire a bit, arranging the logs. “He is a winsome little thing.” Lafargue, it appeared, was not as adverse to animals as Sophie anticipated. She even leaned over Sophie’s shoulder to let it nibble at her fingers cautiously, giggling girlishly when he nipped.

“Naughty thing,” she murmured, pulling away.

Fabien shook his head slightly in dismay.

“ _Souci_ ,” Sophie cooed, dangling the ribbon that was now pocked with teeth holes and damp. She looked at Fabien and then back to her new pet. “He does look like a little marigold, right? This spot here,” she turned him onto his back, pointing it out for Fabien to see.

“Trouble,” Fabien insisted, and Sophie scoffed at him.

“If he’s trouble, he’s only the amusing sort,” she soothed, petting him lovingly. “And just as dear, and wonderful as all of God’s creatures,” she insisted, kissing him on the snout to punctuate the words. She let him go and he toddled away, winding around the room until he was sniffing at the toe of Fabien’s boot. Sophie sat up, watching him.

“Careful,” she warned, thinking he might leap upon his bad leg, and to her surprise, Fabien reached down and brought the dog onto his lap, turning him over and inspecting his splotched belly. He scratched his deep chest lightly with his blunt fingers and then turned him over again in silence, running his hands appreciatively over his lines with his hands.

“Do you know much about dogs?” Sophie inquired, toying with the ribbon in her hands, swirling it around her finger and letting it go.

“Enough to know good from bad,” Fabien said breathily. He raised his eyebrows slightly at the dog in his lap. “I believe this one has much left to prove…”

“I’ve never had a dog,” Sophie considered. She was a pool of yellow silk on the parlor rug, having favored the gold dress that Fabien had procured for her. Initially it was because she had worn it riding already, and therefore it was a safe and comfortable assumption to wear it again, but as Lafargue helped her dress, and she saw herself in the mirror she saw that the heaviness in her face had lifted. Perhaps it was more a way to acknowledge that it was alright.

An olive branch.

Seeing her that morning he’d given the same sort of look he was now giving the puppy gnawing on his knuckle. A look that might have translated roughly to _I see_ had he voiced it.

Around them were the scatters of a picnic sort of supper that Lafargue brought to them as Sophie recounted how Fabien had put the puppy in a rucksack and tied it to Minos’ saddle and there he had swung along as they rode, crying and whining and sticking his head out until he eventually fell asleep, rocked like a baby.

It had been a fair day, just as Fabien said - and the scenery pleasant, just as he’d promised. All the hills and forest, and farmland passing by like they were painted by hand. They did not speak much, but the sun was warm on Sophie’s face and she was glad to be out after being stooped over for such a while. She found she could ask him what sort of things were, and he would answer, telling her about the trees, the wildlife, the odd folk tales surrounding the occasional boulder that seemed to sprout from nowhere at all.  

“I’ve never had anything like it of my own,” Sophie continued watching Souci play with his hand. “Doesn’t that hurt?” she tittered, wondering if she should scold the puppy for behaving that way.

“I hardly feel it,” Fabien replied, his eyes half lidded. “I’ve suffered much worse than this rascal,” he said, ruffling his ears and setting him down on the floor with a grunt as he bent over.

Sophie clucked at the puppy who came sleepily to her, still wagging his tail madly.

“He’ll keep you warm all winter,” Fabien sighed, reaching down again, this time to lift his leg up onto a stool that he nudged towards his chair with his good foot.

“Madame Lafargue says there’s much snow…”

“Hmm,” Fabien hummed, head tilted back in the chair, hands folded over his stomach. He was watching the firelight.

Sophie found herself yawning, the motion of petting Souci’s long back and the warmth from the hearth making her drowsy after all the fresh air.

“Shall we go to bed, sweetest?” she asked, gathering him to her chest. She would have Lafargue take him into the garden first, maybe, or put some linens or hay down for him on the floor, in the corner, if he needed to relieve himself. She stood up, arranging her skirt carefully so not to trip with dog cradled against her. He was sagging, asleep, and she could feel the little drum of his heart against her own skin and it made her feel giddy inside.

“Sophie.”

She stopped, turning to Fabien, whose eyes had drifted closed. They opened again, scanning the fire.

“I am sorry if I frightened you. It was never my intention.”

Sophie blinked at him.

“If you were to do me harm I suppose you already would have,” she said, meaning to be glib, watching him turn his head to her. His eyes blazed like coals, face vivid and glanced with a prism of gold and shadow and orange.

“I am not… proficient with expressing myself,” he said over the crackle of the wood. “I’ve been told I can be blunt, especially in good company. I have a history of putting my foot in my mouth that long outlives you.”

She adjusted the puppy in her arms, looking shyly at him, not knowing how to react. She did not know why he was revisiting the subject, and with such sincerity now that they were alone.  He kicked, his paw scraping her dress.

“He is so sweet when he sleeps,” she smiled. “Like a baby, isn’t he? Everyone is sweet when they sleep…” her voice trailed off.

“Sophie.”

She looked up again.

“Are you frightened of me?”

The light slanted in another direction, away, leaving him in dimness, but she could still see his eyes - those eyes that followed, like a portrait’s.

She shook her head, unable to break from him.

“No,” she said, whispering. “Though I sometimes think that I should…”

He huffed a laugh, looking down once more, releasing her from his spell.

“Perhaps it is I who should be terrified,” he murmured, stretching languidly in the chair. “You make men like me change their wicked ways,” his voice tumbled into a low rumble and Sophie felt a flutter that began in her stomach and ended in her slippers. “I won’t keep you any longer,” he waved his hand.

“Goodnight, Fabien,” she said, as she left his side. She swore she saw him cock his head out of the corner of her eye just before she disappeared behind the door.

 

* * *

 

 

She played in the yard with the puppy for some time the next morning, Fabien hearing the sound from his study. She had leapt from bed and into her clothes to do so, her hair hanging in a fall of dark brown tumbles down her back, her breath coming in clouds in the dewy coolness.

She was like a child, he thought, spying on her only a little from the window.

One who did not know many playmates might become a child again, though, if given the opportunity. Her childhood had been isolated, and alone, with only her mother for company, spirited between towns and identities and helpful men.

The puppy bawled his pitchy bark at her, scrambling to keep up, and chomping on grass, his body shoveling furrows into the garden beds.

He thought of the last twist of summer flowers he had tied and placed on top of her embroidery that morning after his walk - a ritual to stretch the stiffness from his leg, and open his lungs. She’d left her bedroom door open again.

He’d peered down at it, the careening snarl of it, the fronds and fruit and birds that crowded unevenly around it. From his position it appeared distorted, as though it grinned instead of gaped. Its fangs dripped red flowers today.

He rather liked it.


	7. interlude

_interlude_   
  


*

 

Sophie cuddled around Souci inside the tent of her bed, her arms pulling the dog close to her, nose burying somewhere against the flat top of his head to warm it. He wriggled, lapping at her cheek with his wide tongue and she turned her face away, wincing as his tongue found its way to her ear and swirled into her hair.

“Cici,” she groaned, trying to roll them both over so that the dog was more pinned under her and not such a nuisance. The puppy squirmed, breaking free to stand up on the mattress, huffing into her hair. He growled, his fat paw smacking heavily against her arm and she pulled it back under the covers, bundling herself down in them, knees curling to her chest to preserve the warmth he’d left behind.

“Go and bother Fabien,” she muttered, pushing him lightly when he drew near again. He shook his loose skin and yowled, excited to be awake and the promise of a meal. Sophie ignored him, prodding her foot around to feel for the weight of the bed warmer; it had lost much of its heat during the night and she frowned into her pillow.

“Have him bring more coals,” she yawned, snuggling her head down further.

With a grumble Souci waddled to the edge of the bed and nosed aside the drape, his nails clicking loudly on the wooden step and then thumping to the ground. She heard him circle about the room for a while, and the haze of sleep started to drift back into her head while she drew the imaginary patterns of his wanderings - a circle here, and looping back there, and going under the toilette and around the bench, and sniffing at the chest, and the bottom of the door to her closet.

He whined impatiently, and she was awake again and listening to him scratch emphatically at the edge of the door to the hall, his paw scraping the wood and beating the floor each time, which was particularly obnoxious and one he’d learned quickly that she could not stand for long.  

The whine grew more charismatic, and Sophie sighed loudly, sitting up. She blinked, rubbing her eyes in the dark of the bed, feeling around for the edge of one of the blankets. She caught the corner, and dragged it along as she scooted over, shoving aside the drapes and stepping down. Her toes curled at the cold floor, making her hiss, and she sleepily looked about for her slippers. It took her a long while to find them - they’d been kicked haphazardly under the bed, the toe of one gnawed by the offending creature now romping at her feet, nearly tangling himself in the bottom of the blanket she now wrapped around her like a makeshift robe.

“Naughty boy,” she scolded, voice quiet from sleeping, slipping her feet into them and shuffling to the door.

For weeks winter crept around the house, blowing its teasing chilly breath on them, peeking through the windows and spying through the cracks in the doors. It toyed with the lamps and dusted the lawn with white frost each morning, like a shake of confectioner’s sugar. It spangled crystals on the glass of Sophie’s bedroom windows, tracing its finger along in patterns that rivaled the finest Chantilly lace in court.

The dazzling colors of autumn, the golds that would have put the King to shame, the scarlets and tiger-bright oranges, slowly dulled to grays and curling browns, drooped and shivering like beggars as they clung to the last few branches. Evergreens broke the skeletal twine of reaching limbs now and then, fringed green and steadfast against the gales that rung through the hillsides and scattered against the rocks and cliffs like waves breaking.

“Shh,” she whispered, holding a finger to her lips, the puppy dancing and turning, making it impossible to walk more than a few steps at a time. She opened the door just enough to let him weasel out into the hall, hearing him go tearing down and back again in a frolicing gallop. It was dark, as there were no windows, but behind in her room it was the first rosy winks of dawn, which vaguely told her of the time.

For some time the sun had disappeared under a quilt of gray clouds heavy with the promise of an early snow, but today it parted and the sky would fade from pink to gold and finally become a blue bowl holding a yellow apple of crisp winter light. She shivered, feeling the change in the atmosphere  - how cold it had become overnight - and the air so clean she could roll it in her mouth, like quicksilver.

She padded through the corridor and the scullery and into the kitchen. It was darker in there, too, the windows soot-stained from cooking fires, but the fire was going strong and there was same pottaged something that was in its continuous simmer every day of the week.

“Cici,” she whispered, calling for him as quietly as she could, unsure if Fabien had dozed off somewhere or not; she’d felt  him stumbling along beside her but he took off quickly once they reached the kitchen. He was still very little, only a few months old, and was given to distraction, veering off at a moment’s notice and difficult to call back once he caught a scent.

Fabien had begun what _he_ saw as training - that was dragging animal pelts around in the  yard for Souci to zig zag after - which only stimulated his nose and exacerbated the problem of him minding her.

At the moment she was more worried he had gone after a mouse, or worse, gotten into food through a door left ajar. Already in his short life he had eaten an entire cache of bacon, a large sum of tipped over milk, and at least half a meter of pork sausage yanked carelessly off of the table where it was being prepared for cooking. This was not counting the thousands of bits and crumbs he found every day or was passed by the weaker members of the household when they supposed nobody was looking.

She heard some crockery being pushed along the floor with a dull rocking scrape and the slip of a lid off of something.

“Souci,” she tried again, attempting to be stern. Her blanket cape trailed behind her like a train and she reeled it into her hands to keep it from getting too filthy or catching on something. “Would you like a treat?” she tried, standing still only to hear a clamor and racing paws.

It was then that a gust of wind blew, and the door out to the garden swung open - unlatched -  spilling light and cold hair inside with it before it swung back and all went dim again, the fire groaning and embers shivering in the hearth. Whatever Sophie promised was not as interesting as the outdoors, and the little dog nosed open the door and trotted out, disappearing from her sight.

Sighing in defeat, she followed, pulling the door open all the way into the white-blue other world behind it. She had to shield her eyes with a bit of the blanket, but once she adjusted to the gleam she could see properly that white covered everything, white as freshly starched linen, a good few inches from what he could see stacked on the garden wall.

Up the hill in the far field black spots of crows hopped and skipped, wings scattering splashes of sparkling white in the new sunlight, bathing themselves. Their caws echoed around, squabbling and delighted, all the way to where she stood.

Souci was clumsily swimming through what lay on the ground, his short legs and deep chest plowing a path, his tongue lolling in excitement at the new sensation. Just past him she could see boot prints in the snow and she knew them instantly by the strange stagger of them, the odd lengthening and shortening of the steps. They went through the gate and veered off to the barn, but had not returned yet. It was truthfully a later start than what was usual, but Fabien must have been worrying after the horses with it being so cold. It was the first end of the week of the month, which meant that Lafargue and Etienne were gone a few miles home to visit with Lafargue’s three elder sons and their wives and grandchildren.

Lafargue would be gone for the whole week, as her daughter in law was about to give birth any day.

Sophie felt a twinge of guilt - without their help the two of them were alone, which meant that more labor fell on Fabien’s shoulders. With the snow it must have made the task more difficult, or at least a greater annoyance. She looked down at herself, knowing she was in no state to start on any chores. He’d left her to sleep.

She looked back out at the yard and sighed, Souci trolloping around, paying no mind to how wet he was becoming. He snapped it into his jaws, crunching happily and burying his face awkwardly into it till he sneezed, which made her laugh. He came at the sound of her voice, grabbing hold of the edge of her blanket, tugging at it playfully.  

“You’ll tear it, Cici,” she chided, but all at once she stepped out and her slipper sank down into the trough he’d dug out, with a soft icy crush and the other one soon followed. It was shockingly cold and she inhaled, feeling it under the thin leather soles, the silk becoming wet quickly. Her breath clouded out around her, and the door swung on its hinges with a squeak in the suck of the wind, slamming shut with a rattle. Her blanket fluttered around her, swirling round her feet, and her hair flew all directions before settling. She could feel the kitten-teethed nip of snow against the back of her legs where it was caught up in the breeze, rolling in powdery billows across the yard.

“It’s freezing,” she chattered, her shoulders shrugging up to her ears which prickled along with her cheeks and her nose, Souci still pulling at her and now beginning to bark - the sound muffled by his full mouth.

She looked up, at the sun-streaked sky to warm her face, surprised to see a flock of starlings casting about like fish in the sea; a great humming thing twisting back and forward over the trees, turning over each other in perfect synchrony. She watched them a while, and then looked down to the clean white snow all around her, the way it twinkled like diamonds, entirely unspoiled. Perfect and smooth, like white marzipan. She wondered, in one dreamy childish thought, if it would taste of almonds.

She remembered a story where a woman swallowed a snowflake and produced a child. She couldn't recall where she’d heard it; probably some well meaning old auntie or maid trying to entertain her as she played on the floor in an empty room, or maybe even some drunk and red faced suitor attempting to make good with his future conquest's little pearl. Regardless, the idea fascinated her - to think that her mother could conceive a companion for her as easily as swallowing a snowflake. Surely if it worked for the woman in the story it would work for Beatrice.

Her mother never shared in this novel concept or found it charming in any way. Sophie knew she threw a tantrum or two over the tragic fact that this was not the way children were brought into the world, which always brought _her_ a quick spank or slap for being so ridiculous - her mother was in no state to be rearing yet another child alone.

“That woman was a whore,” she said coarsely. “She tried to fool her husband and he punished her stupidity, and _that_ is what you should remember - not some dream of eating snow and having sisters.”

In Sophie’s head there was no end to the story - no cruel husband or foolish wife or child being sold off to toil for no fault of his own. The adult insinuation of the woman’s promiscuity was lost on her. There was only a mother and a father and a snow-child in the happy before, playing together and tucked into bed at night.

In the wake of such episodes Beatrice would guiltily do her best to please her, often trying to be mother and sister both. If Sophie cried she’d pull her to her lap and wind her hands around her middle and bury her nose in the part of Sophie’s hair.

“Sweet pet,” she’d say, stroking her arms and rocking her side to side. “You know I must have you all for myself, don’t you? I couldn’t possibly share you.” Her mouth would press kisses all over her face and their cheeks would rest against one another’s for a few warm moments.

If Sophie grew pouting she would become playful, teasing and prodding and tickling and hugging her in a way that squeezed her breath out.

“Don’t smile now, Sophie,” she’d say in that faint lisping voice, her eyes dark with depths of anguished love for something so helpless. She’d tap Sophie’s chin with her fan and make her scowl. “You’ll ruin a perfectly bad mood.” She’d smirk and Sophie would watch her, see the terrible beauty and confidence of her sculpted features, and go soft, rushing to wrap her arms around her, rubbing her face in her stomach, the place she had once lived - despite what her mother told her.

Beatrice spun her own tales: she’d found Sophie floating down a stream, like Moses in the reeds, or folded into a rose or in the middle of a pie, no bigger than a blossom or a plum.

_I kissed you and you turned into a baby right before my eyes, would you know?_  Beatrice would say, smiling down at her.

They were pretty stories that she begged to hear, but as she grew older it was more easy to believe them than the idea that she was her natural child. There was a resemblance - dark coiling hair, dark eyes, the general heart shaped face - but in constitution they seemed very different. Sophie was tender hearted, a romantic, a dreamer, easy to express emotion, a meek and people-pleasing child. Beatrice was poised and calculating, only ever interested in her own preservation and by proxy, Sophie’s.

For many years they were so physically close - sharing beds, sharing food, sharing everything - that they were like one organism. Now she found she couldn’t quite remember what her mother sounded like, or the expressions she made that were so captivating and did not remind her of her own face, or her own voice, and yet were too familiar to ignore.

She crouched down, shoveling a bit into the cup of her hands, bringing it to her lips. Her tongue darted out to taste - and then she washed her face with it, feeling it melt and run down her neck, sending shivers down her spine. She stood up, smoothing it against the flyaway hairs around her face, petting them down.

Perhaps she was a snow-child herself, all along. Maybe Beatrice swallowed a single flake, caught it on her tongue, and out she came. Perhaps that was why Versailles had brought so much sorrow; snow children could never last under the sun.

_You’ve even been sold off_ \- she thought to herself with a smile.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Sophie turned her head to see Fabien staring at her from the garden gate, his chest rising and falling a bit hard, his face more flush than usual.

She rubbed her cold wet hands over one another and then patted them dry on the blanket, understanding she must look more than a bit silly. He stuttered a cough into his fist, and fixed her with his sphinxlike stare.

“Haven’t you ever washed your face with snow?” she asked, pulling the cover around her.

Fabien squinted at her from his few steps away, momentarily distracted when Souci began nipping at the edge of his coat.

“Not when wearing nearly nothing,” he remarked, looking back to her with a disapproving frown. “And more out of necessity than choice -.”

“Here,” she said brightly, coming towards him. She leaned over to the garden wall this time to scoop the fresh crumbling white into her hands, missing the startled look on his face. He leaned back, anticipating what she was about to do, but she was already letting it melt between her fingers and bringing it up to his face.

“It won’t hurt,” she said, reaching past his hesitance. He found that her hands were not so frigid, though he fought the urge to jerk away out of habit; his face was already a bit numb, not so much to not feel the snow against his skin, but enough to make it less jarring. Her motions were sure of themselves and she didn’t seem at all perturbed as she pet his jaw and cheeks up to his temples with her palms, stroking his hair back roughly, fingers wet comb.

He was stupefied, looking down in embarrassment as the blanket fell off her shoulders, revealing the spill of her hair on her collarbone and he looked down at the scoop of her chemise before he snapped his eyes back to her face. She met his eye for a moment and then reached and took his limp, dumbfounded, hands, rubbing the extra water on them briskly.

"No gloves?" she asked, holding his hand for a moment, turning it over. He pulled it away, squeezing his cold fingers at the knuckle.

"Forgot them," he said. 

The light coming down was stark and wintry, and he watched the water still drying on her face take on a pearlescent sheen.

She took her hand and wiped a drop from his cheek and he blinked, brows crawling together.

“It feels nice, doesn’t it? My mother always told me it prevented aging,” she said matter of factly, flicking her wrists, stepping back from him. Her fingers were pink and shining, as were her cheeks and the the tips of here ears and nose.

“I believe it’s far too late for me on that front,” he managed, taking a short breath, which huffed into another quiet dry cough. The wind blew, and she shivered looking back up at the sky and he followed her to where the starlings mobbed about.

“Isn’t it a bit cold for birds?” she asked, looking cross her shoulder at him.

“They’re on their way to Spain, ” he said, following her gaze. “Perhaps Africa.”

“They’re very pretty, all together like that... like smoke,” she sighed, tipping her chin up at them, tilting her head slightly to one side. “I could have stayed in bed and missed saying goodbye to them.”

“You _should_ be inside,” he said softly, suddenly by her ear as quiet as a spirit. She jumped a little, feeling the weight of his wool coat drop onto her back and fall around her, the heady smell of him and animals on it. She looked down at the heavy folds of the lapels and the large buttons, measured for a man’s hands. Swaddled in the blanket underneath she could not fit herself into the arms but knew that the cuff would drape well past where it would on him.

She heard Fabien whistle for the dog, and the dry sound of him walking back into the house, knocking his boots at the door frame to get the snow off.

“Come in and eat,” he said, coughing slightly, and Sophie took a moment more to look at the birds that would soon be gone away south. She pulled the coat around her, feeling the rough weave between her fingers. It was like the coarse grain of his beard coming in under her hands. Her fingers stilled, and she watched the birds rise and fall carelessly on the wind.

She wanted to be close to someone, and there he appeared in the snow beside her. The shine of the sun throwing light up to his face illuminated him like a sheet of ice. She felt like a little odd creature discovered by some other of the same kind. 

She found his face was the same temperature as her hands, and his eyes reflected her image back to her like a mirror.  
  
Birds bathing in snow together. 

“Mademoiselle,” Fabien said impatiently, still waiting in the doorway. 

Sophie turned, gathering the blanket carefully up in her arms so she could walk more easily. It was heavy now, like something was bundled inside it.


	8. six

vi

 

*

 

Fabien had no recollection of how he ended up on the floor.

Last he figured he was in bed, and now he was here, lying awkwardly on his side, every bone in his body giving off a dull discomforted ache.

He knew that there was blood in his left eye - when he blinked it open it stuck to his lashes and colored everything in a rosy haze he found annoyingly familiar - but otherwise he was at a loss. Carefully he began to take inventory of his limbs, moving his arm to find that other than feeling sore, and heavy, he was able to lift it and bring his hand to mop dumbly at his face.

The back of his sleeve confirmed his initial judgement was correct: there was a _healthy_ sum of blood seeping into his eye from a gash just over his brow. He could feel the sting when he rubbed the linen on it, and the beginning of a fine knot-like bruise forming as well.

“Shit,” he croaked, his fingers clumsily pressing a bit too hard on the grainy tissue. The word itself was barely more than a whisper, voice rough and rasping and his throat raw. Just trying to speak drove a pin of pain into his chest, and he became instantly aware of how tight it felt. 

His shoulders shuddered as he tried to catch his breath properly, chest heaving into a wet cough, and he shakily raised himself up on his elbow in an attempt to make it easier to dislodge what little he could. All the while the blood still trickling down into his eye ran in a hot trail down his neck and into the collar of his shirt.

He could immediately rule out that his current state was not a gory side effect of his old position (being bludgeoned, stabbed, poisoned or any of the plethora of glamorous injuries he’d sustained over the years) but, instead, the result of a sneaking itch at the back of his windpipe that crawled into a full blown croup and left him entirely useless.

Under the gash his forehead was prickled with heat, his shirt practically plastered to him from sweat as the fever raged on. He wiped his sore eyes again, blinking around. He was in his room, which was a good start.  Ironically, he was sprawled on the rug he’d put down in order to prevent slipping - the carpet gave more traction than the smooth wood floor and also felt easier on his joints.

It also appeared to be broad daylight outside, somewhere in the early afternoon, but the wintry light was always a bit clearer and crisper than the drowsy gold of summer or the bright and dazzling spangle of autumn and so he couldn’t be sure. Either way it was like looking directly into the sun itself to his stunned brain.

He turned his stiff neck and made out that the chair pulled to the bedside had its back on the floor; a book or two were scattered about the legs, and the bed linens hung down towards the floor in a snake’s coil.

It told a rather straightforward story: he woke in a stupor and thought, reasonably, to get his cane. He’d underestimated his own weakness, or the snare of his bedclothes, or simply tripped on the edge of the carpet itself, which resulted in him cutting his forehead on some part of the chair on his way down.

The truth was, yes, he had risen from bed because he felt suddenly and unbearably hot, and the only possible recourse was to strip every article he could. Had he been a bit wiser he would have untwisted the shirt from him lying down, but he’d felt a nervous sort of urgency and his vertigo was so bad upon standing that he practically fainted, knocking his head against the sharp carved detail of his bedpost. The resulting tunnel vision and ringing in his ears sent him grasping for the chair to steady himself but all he successfully did was tip the chair over and send himself to the ground.

He blinked more blood out of his eye  - his left, he thought, which had always been unlucky - and brought his hand up to press and slow the stream. He knew that there wouldn’t be any easy way of extracting himself from the position on his own. He was barely able to sit up and drag his bad leg out from where it was locked under the other, gritting his teeth through the discomfort and taking a long moment to simply groan at how sodden and feeble his whole body felt. 

His eyes drifted closed and he kept the hand on his forehead, feeling like he was about to sink straight through the boards under his back-  like a cord at the bottom of his spine was tugging him down while the rest of the world tipped and spun like a top. In all, it felt very much like he was drunk.

Or, what he supposed being very drunk felt like. Either way, he was not so accustomed to such commotion.

Fabien didn’t _get_ ill. All his life he maintained a sense that his body, having endured that prolific list of hurts, was immune to common ails and other disturbances. He was already very busy trying not to bleed out or break every rib to allow some stupid germ to inhabit him and assumed he was at least athletic enough to outrun or parry anything else that came his way. The closest he got was being mercilessly poisoned, and even then he’d used the notion of a cold as a farce in the face of Bontemp - it was quite clear Alexandre was unconvinced. 

During those most violent works of justice he maintained the decency to bow to basic hygiene and hadn’t tolerated unnecessary dirtiness from his men either. So, naturally, for the past several days he’d emphatically proclaimed to everyone - God, Sophie, the dog, himself - that there was nothing out of the ordinary and whatever rheumatic response he was enduring would be gone in a matter of days and no one would remember it and all would go on as usual.

His head throbbed in tempo with his heartbeat, but he could tell that blood was beginning to dry on the lid of his eye and down the taught line of his cheek and his jaw and that he should call out, or at least try, but he simply couldn’t find the means to.

It was infuriating. He’d imagined that he would die long before he got to an age where he was made to feel so pathetic. He’d come fantastically close more than once. Even without this added embarrassment, or his leg being the pain in his ass that it was, the whole process was a torturous inconvenience and one he’d meant to avoid entirely. 

“...Shit,” he wheezed again, staring up at the ceiling through his weepy eyes. He clenched and unclenched the fist of his free hand, the rafters shimmering above his head, multiplying and dividing before shaking back into place.

 _You will never hear the end of this,_  he said to himself, still stunned. Unfortunately, hitting his head had not finished him off but Sophie’s nagging probably would once she saw.

His memories were awash with her worried face and unheeded pleas, and now he was duly paying for it.

It was cooler on the floor, at least.

He’d simply sleep there a while, till he could find his bearings; he’d slept in worse places for worse reasons.

It was very quiet and still, despite the shifting shapes that pounced out of the blackness behind his eyelids and the sensation that he was slowly being swirled down a drain; there wasn’t any noise that he was aware of, though his hearing was swimmy and most sounds seemed incredibly loud (his own hard breathing, or the unbearable racket of his coughing) to his cotton-stuffed ears or like they were occurring thousands of miles away.

Lafargue and her boy were still gone, which didn’t surprise him. He’d anticipated a delay as soon as it began to snow.   
  
Before she left Lafargue began hanging bundles of things from the rafters to dry; fragrant herbs that filled the kitchen with a sweet, dead smell that Fabien actually liked quite a bit. He had no idea why women did such things - he assumed she cut it down for seasoning, or maybe to move the stale air a bit since they’d be cooped up for some time. Perhaps just to have something prettier to look at.

“Here,” she instructed, showing Sophie how to crush them into her palm to release the odour and taste. “It wakes them up,” she said, lifting her hand to nose for a moment and then wiping the rest away on her apron. There was a pause as Sophie did the same, timidly, and then her soft little _r_ _osemary_ ?

He'd smiled despite himself, listening to them talk with his back turned as he was sat near the kitchen fire, heating the concoction that he would use to waterproof his boots for the winter - a waxy cauldron of tallow, lard, turpentine and other such materials that was brushed on a few layers thick and left to warm gradually near the fire till it was dry and a bit stiff.

It would make walks in the snow less of a chore, especially if he was out checking traps.

His housekeeper was finishing her arduous preservations as well, not only for the upcoming week, but for the upcoming months. She vanished into the cellar for hours each day to do what Fabien only could guess, running hither and fro attending to a menagerie of mysterious errands, stopping into Fabien’s office to dispute her allowances and presenting her ledger and receipts for his review. He always closed the book with a presumptuous _snap_ , holding it one handed and nearly tossing it back at her with an approving nod and nothing more.

There had only been one contest lately - which was that Sophie was needing proper winter clothes and Lafargue had insisted that they solicit the fur trader from the colonies, who she had heard would be there in a few weeks time. Fabien did not see the point in buying something so elaborate, and could only guess at the cost of something of that nature. Wouldn't French fur suit her? Why pay the markup of a merchant who probably could not even prove where he'd procured his stock.   
  
"And who is it she plans to impress with such things," Fabien giving Lafargue a suspicious look.

"No one, of course," Lafargue replied primly, staring him down. "Not until she is properly debuted."

Fabien rolled his eyes. 

"Do as you must, then," he said, enunciating the words clearly and returning to his reading. 

"As I always do," Lafargue answered, bowing her head. 

Contrary to what anyone might think he _was_ somewhat fond of her.  Her thinness betrayed a broad personality; practical, but also given to a sly sense of humor and an impeccable wit. Behind her stony eyes and sour face there was a great intelligence for how to anticipate the actions of others, a sort of instinct he recognized himself. She was exactly the sort of housekeeper he’d been looking for: neither sensitive nor too scheming. Shrewd enough to accomplish what he wanted and soft enough to deliver that sliver of feminine energy into his house that otherwise would have become a shrine to his disinterest in most domestic chores or sank into a more updated version of his former gloomy fortress.

Prior to his employ the widow Lafargue had quite a reputation - her father, long departed, was a drunkard but talented in producing wool. He was comfortable enough to marry off two older daughters to good families and the youngest, Gaetane,  went more or less ignored despite being lauded as a beauty in her time.

The reputation, of course, was that she was embittered to her father’s neglect which left her hardened and dour and with nothing to show but a poor cousin as a husband and six children. In local terms: a bitch.

The moment he’d summoned her he knew he was going to hire her. Her frothy coif and drab colored clothes told him everything he needed to know. There was something about her that fit seamlessly in with the house, like she’d been carved out of one of the blocks of graystone by a mason and left for him to find, and he certainly hadn’t been looking for anyone who would stand out.

She’d brought the boy, Etienne, in tow - a silly, sandy haired young man with an almost off putting cheerfulness especially when put in relief against his mother and his new master.

Etienne, to his credit, never seemed to notice his own personality was, in effect, completely opposite to those around him, but boys like him did not usually notice much beyond pretty girls and where to find a pint. Fabien had few complaints as long as he did his work and was relatively timely and didn’t talk to him in excess. He had a habit of making Fabien increasingly uncomfortable because he was a gabber, and he was immune to any of Fabien’s usual deterring features.

He needn’t have worried - Lafargue was her boy’s strongest critic. She had four other sons long grown but Etienne was her youngest and apparently the one she could not part with just yet. Better to keep him under her nose and out of trouble, she figured. It was fairly standard procedure to hear her squawking at him in the yard about being lazy or sleeping in the hayloft like some vagrant. Her new master was also a respectable man, diligent servant to the King of France - perhaps Etienne could learn a thing or two about decorum under his employ if he used the eyes God gave him for something other than barmaids and gambling.  
  
He wondered, as he lay on the carpet of his bedroom floor like some dilapidated idiot, what all Lafargue might assume of his _decorum_ now. At Versailles he was thought to be no better than a well trained dog as far as all that was concerned. Not that he cared, or bothered to investigate the opinions of others, especially in that whirling circus of a palace.

His head felt light and strange, and he thought he could hear something - a dull thudding that could have been his heartbeat or something else. The hollow sound of the King’s shoe as he danced, or someone knocking on a door.

Someone was knocking on _his_ door.

“Oh -!”

There was a great crash, and Fabien blearily took his hand away from his eye.

Sophie was standing in the doorway, and he blinked several times to try and focus on the sight of her. Her hands went from four to two, suspended in mid air, shivering in place, her stricken face gazing down on him in horror.

“I assure you it feels worse than it looks,” he said simply, with a cough, lowering his head back to the floor with a _thunk_.

She’d dropped a tray, and some strange broth she’d sloughed together was puddling at her feet, bowl cracked clean in half. He frowned. That was supposedly good crockery.

“What on earth did you do?!” she gasped, finally able to speak.

“The dog,” he said, watching as Souci began to lap at the mixture, which he could see without having to raise his head.

“You are _covered_ in blood Fabien!” she yelled, lurching forward, her dress dragging over the remains tray as she rushed past.

He replaced his hand over his eye, coughing.

“Don’t move -,” she cried, racing frantically out of the room again, and if Fabien had the strength he might have shrugged.

Souci trotted over to him, licking his jowls, satisfied. He then began to bathe Fabien’s face sloppily and Fabien could only lay there. He certainly wasn’t going anywhere fast.

 

* * *

 

 

“Try to keep your head up,” she said, holding his chin as it kept tipping forward to his chest. He lifted a weary hand to wave her away but it thudded back to the mattress tiredly instead.

“This is unnecessary,” he grumbled, and Sophie frowned, dipping the cloth back into the bowl she’d brought up to the room and squeezing it out. It was a rather small knick, but for whatever reason it was producing a good deal of blood that was difficult to stall completely. The water was already quite red - and each time she tried to clean the wound she could see the blood starting to come back again. She pursed her lips, going back to mopping at his face gently. 

“Is it too cold?” she asked, and he shook his head, eyes still closed, face slack. 

“I’m boiling,” he murmured, and she knew it was true - she could feel it radiating off of him in waves. His hair, without the help of the water, was soaking and stuck to him, and his shirt too.  Somehow she’d managed to get him upright and keep the majority of their shared dignity intact as she helped him back over to his bed, trying to encourage him to sit up more so that he could breathe - and also so she could at least  _ attempt _ to doctor him. 

“You shouldn’t have been out of bed,” she scolded. “I knew I couldn’t leave you for more than a moment before you found trouble for yourself.”

His eye cracked to glare at her sidelong and then closed again, leaving only the reddish lids and bruise like hollows underneath. 

“What?” she said, still dabbing at him. He said nothing and it was her turn to sigh, gingerly padding at the blood caked into his beard. 

“I do not care for being at the mercy of others…” he went on to say after a few moments, punctuating it with a cough that sent him leaning forward, away from her. She rolled her eyes, waiting for him to settle again, studying him as he sank back into the pillows and cleared his throat loudly. 

“Well, it isn’t anything you can exactly help now, is it?” she replied softly, wringing the cloth out once more. “Everyone needs someone sometime. Even you,” she trailed off, standing and taking the bowl and resting it on the bureau.    
  
When he made no response she turned to look at him again over her shoulder. He breathed hard, and his face was sheened. She could tell from the light fist he made that he was suffering a good deal of discomfort, and knew even better that it would be a cold day in hell before she ever heard him admit it. 

“Your mother was much more tender to me,” he muttered. Sophie scoffed.

“Because she was a liar,” she said sternly. “She always caught more flies with honey...you might have learned a thing or two, you know.” She smirked to herself.

He only grunted in response, unappreciative of her joke.  

She was relieved that he was slightly more coherent today - even if he’d easily scared twenty years off of her life giving her that kind of fright. 

As the fever overtook him he could barely string a sentence together with what little breath he could manage, and the rest of it was nonsense, or coughing, or listing his many complaints to her over and over. He had no appetite, and slept in fits and starts - often unable to rest because he was either burning up or freezing cold. 

It was a familiar role to her, and Fabien himself had once even complimented her bedside manner, but tending to him didn’t ease any anxiety; in fact, it increased them. She did her very best to appear undisturbed by what she saw out of fear that it may make him feel worse, but it proved to be particularly upsetting finding Fabien helpless - especially at first, when her annoyance with him ignoring her wore off and she was only left with his pitiful face looking up at her in all its confusion. 

Even  _ he _ wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. 

If Lafargue were there she might even feel self serving visiting his sick bed and reading arduous passages from his dusty books till he passed out from boredom, but it was only her, and her unruly and often uncooperative patient. 

“ _ It’s only a cold _ ,” he touted, even as she was taking his arm and leading him up the stairs when he seemed incapable of doing it himself, having lost his cane in the latest attempt. He had to catch his breath after each step, back shaking with each try,  face smothered into the linen handkerchief that was perpetually crumpled in his hand.    
  
He heaved himself up another step, swaying on his feet and sagging against the wall, his free hand gripping her arm hard for balance. “ _ It will be gone in few days… _ ”

“You can barely stand,” she said, wincing away from his coughing while they paused their climb. “Let alone continue whatever it is you are up to,” she watched him wheeze into the bundle of cloth, sweating. “You have no business wandering around like you have been. You need rest.”

“It will be gone in a few days…,” he repeated, attempting to sound like himself. He rolled an eye to her, pulling his arm  away, sinking even more to one side. “Don’t make me suffer the worries of a little girl,” he muttered, and even with him panting slightly and squinting his face up in pain she didn’t miss the pettiness in the comment. “ _ Where _ is Lafargue?” he said louder bending over slightly, his knee shaking. “Gaetane - my cane…”

“Oh really?” she hissed, snatching his elbow again before he buckled completely. She felt him lean heavily on her and for a moment she was desperately afraid he would send them both flying back to their deaths. She looked up at the steps they still had to make, shoving her shoulder into him and prodding him on.     
  
“I hate to inform you of this,  _ Monsieur Marchal _ , but your cane is lying at the bottom of this staircase,” she grit her teeth against his dead weight. “Which, I might add, is where  _ you _ will be if you don’t accept the help of this  _ little girl _ .”

“Etienne will be back soon, he’s only held up because of the snow...” he mumbled, head drooping over her shoulder, the top of his head brushing up against her neck. She felt his arm loop loosely around her waist for support.

_ But what if he isn’t _ ? Sophie had wanted to blurt, blushing a little. “You are to stay in bed, no going outside anymore,” she insisted when she knew she at least had his full attention. “I think it might kill you being in the cold,” they made slow but steady progress.

“I’d welcome it,” he coughed as he shuffled on- out of delirium or embarrassment Sophie didn’t know - but not disputing her either.

Convincing him to drink the herbal brew she’d made for him from the sachet she found was a task unto itself. In a desperate attempt she’d gone into the pantry, looking around for anything, trying to think as Lafargue might in that moment. 

She lifted a few jars, looking inside and not recognizing the contents, but in one little drawer she found a wooden box that she opened hastily, nearly spilling the contents all over her dress. She lifted it to her nose, as it was filled with stems and what looked to be flowers. 

She couldn’t place it by name, but she knew that scent very well. She took fresh snow and let it melt in a pot over the fire till it simmered and this she carefully ladled over the unknown herb, covering it with a cloth as she’d seen Madame Caron do for the Monsieur when his rheumatism was acting up or when is cough was becoming unbearable to listen to.

After a while of impatient waiting she lifted the cloth from the steaming thing and gave it a hesitant taste. The bitterness she recognized as well, and she shook her head, sticking out her tongue and going to the sugar bowl and spooning the most modest amount she could.  

Souci looked up at her, slobbering onto the floor, blinking his wet eyes.

“You don’t want this,” she told him, covering it again to keep the steam in and setting it on the wood tray with a bit of bread that she prayed he would eat.

“What is  _ that _ ,” Fabien coughed, eyeing the cup from his bed and the plumes of warm steam rising from it as she tottered it into his room. 

“I found it in the pantry,” she explained. “And I made it the way I remember Madame Caron doing for Monsieur.”    
  
She set the tray down on the table, gently moving the candle to the side so as not to extinguish it. and sat down in the chair once more, leaning forward to be closer to him. 

He took it in his hand, though she helped, and looked down at the swirl of stalks inside, carefully picking a large one out and examining it warily. 

“I suppose I should have strained it,” she said with a flush. “But I do think it will help -,”

“The last time I accepted a drink from a woman  _ de Clermont _ it was nearly the last thing I did,” he glowered, voice barely rising above a crackling whisper. He dropped the twig back in, watching it bob. 

“Well then you don’t have to drink it,” Sophie huffed, exasperated, beginning to pull it away again. He tightened his grip on the cup, glaring at her, and she relented, sitting back in the chair to watch that he at least tried it. 

He took a cautious sip and immediately made a face, coughing into his closed fist, trying hard not to spill it all over his front. 

“Meadowsweet,” he sputtered. 

“And?”

He said nothing, taking another sip and grimacing. 

“Strong,” he finally replied.

“It might work, then,” she said, rubbing her eyes tiredly. 

She found no sleep lately. Sometimes she drifted off in the chair she pulled close to the bed, leafing through his books or picking distractedly at her embroidery, Souci curled at her feet. When she found herself collapsing into bed for a little while she always felt guilty - what if he woke up and needed something? Or, worse, something happened and she wasn’t aware? When she wasn’t doing any of that she was trying her best to look after things - tending the fire, the horses, fetching firewood.

For two mornings she’d slogged out to the barn in Fabien’s wool coat and her plainest dress and boots with doubled layers of stockings to the barn and to bring in more to lay in the andirons  - as much as she could at one time. She had no idea how Etienne managed it; he was barely older than her and put her own physique to shame being as thin as he was.  _ His twiggy arms must have hidden talents, _ she thought bitterly each time she had to haul it back to the house. 

Thankfully there was a generous stack already made, but she’d heard scurrying from within the woodpile and it terrified her so that she’d been paralyzed for a good while before she worked up the courage to grab the logs and haul them back to the kitchen door with the sled Etienne had made up out of old timber and a length of rope, Souci dragging a stray stick behind her. 

She couldn’t bring herself to go to the cellar alone, tho she stood at the top of the stairs and gathered her courage as much as she could muster several times. It was simply too dark, and too cold, and she didn’t even have to take one step down before she began to hear things skittering in the damp  chill - could feel them practically crawling on her at the the _ mention _ of even the  _ idea _ of a rat. 

Her entire body had been so taught with worry and exhaustion that the sight of him lying there, blood streaking half his face and a good deal of his shirt, brought her almost to the edge of a sharp cliff. Her hands instantly went numb and the tray fell straight out of them and the urge to cry overwhelmed her. She felt, for a moment, when he raised his head and spoke in that awful rattle from the floor, that she could have dropped to her knees and cried her heart out from relief that at least he wasn’t dead. 

While her patient found his quarters to be either an oven or an ice house Sophie thought it extremely pleasant - the heat rising up into the room and holding quite well. Fabien’s room was not extravagant by any means. Honestly, she was beginning to realize he was a packrat, an opinion she formed being nosy - who knew when she’d get such a chance again. 

Besides, she knew he wandered through her quarters as well, leaving his little evidences behind on purpose or not. 

There was an odd surplus of furniture he must not have known what to do with scattered between the room and closets and gathering dust - some were even blanketed. It baffled her - there was room aplenty downstairs for such things, why keep them huddled up here? 

The chamber itself held a heavy rug on the floor, tables, chair, and bureau as well as a chest that was similar to the one in her own room. Of course, he had the same heavy carved four post bed with deep green curtains that touched the floor when untied, which, judging by the lack of creases in the fabric, seemed to be most of the time. 

Otherwise, there was a veritable  _ archive _ . Every cubby and cabinet was stuffed with papers, and maps, and letters she gathered no meaning from. Lists of names, lists of places. Grocer’s bills and even a tabulation of how much to get his shirts starched. Quills. Half-dried ink pots. Stamps and seals and wax. Notations she recognized to be in his own hand that he must have found important for some function tho they outdated her own relationship with him significantly. She was starting to think he was moonlighting as a scribe.

There were, of course, more books; those of a more rote or lesser quality than the ones he kept in his study or shelved for display. His old Bible lay, predictably, on his bedside table like a lucky charm. 

She’d thumbed through his clothes several times now and found nothing of particular note,  _ tsking _ and shaking her head at the inventory. There would be no perfecting him in that regard, and he certainly wasn’t about to start taking her advice on what to wear. 

After wearing his coat for several days, and rummaging for clean shirts, she found herself oddly familiar with the cut out shapes of his garments, no matter how ugly she thought them. The breadth of his chest, the narrower, short waist. The slight strain in the seams of the shoulders and signs of use at the elbows, the discolorations at the cuffs. They were sturdily made; he’d invested enough thought and money to see them through lasting the  _ decades _ she was certain they belonged to. 

When her hands chanced upon the black velvet jacket she’d nearly thought she’d closed her hands around something alive - it stuck out so much among the linen and wool, plush and animal and divine. 

She brought it out without thinking and held it up; it was perfect Spanish black, no sign of fade, with gold embroidery that didn’t shine brightly, but seemed incandescent. She knelt there, sitting back on her heels, unfurling it over the edge of the chest. Proper length, and style, she approved. She’d never imagined him owning something so lush; she could barely imagine him wearing it, let alone what occasion it would warrant. 

The man lived like one of the old monks that had raised him. 

But when she did chance to envision what he could look like, she found that it probably looked very handsome on him. It was tailored correctly, not the baggy thing she’d been borrowing, to make him look tall and sleek and dignified. A new cane, ebony with gold handle, she thought, not that glorified walking stick he left about. Gold buckled shoes. Gold rings, and the silver in his hair. 

She didn’t know him to be vain, except that he complained about the itch of his beard being so sick, but surely this was evidence that even he knew he could be presentable. She found her mouth twisting into a funny smile. He made a fine show of pretending not to care about such things, but even he bent every now and then to the ways of the world. 

“Tell me about something,” Fabien’s voice came from the bed. Sophie started a bit, shoulders stiffening. She’d figured he’d fallen back into sleep while she attempted to clean her hands. 

“Like what?” she asked, shaking her head slightly as she dried them on a clean corner of a rag.

“Anything,” Fabien wheezed irritably, eyes shut and leaned far back against his pillow, arms sticking out on either side. 

“I don’t think you would find anything I have to say particularly stimulating,” Sophie said slowly, watching him swallow and cough again. He sighed deeply, though she could hear him strain to do so without making more noise. 

“The sea,” he croaked. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

She wandered over to the chair, sitting down with a defeated exhale.    
  
“The sea?” she asked, leaning her cheek on her closed fist. 

“I have not had the pleasure,” he said.  

“I wouldn’t call it a pleasure,” she replied, remembering the Princess, and the great creaking ship, and the gray wintry water and the smell of fish hanging on everything. She was sixteen at the time of that adventure; unthinkable. Even more, she never thought she would be one to own an experience that Fabien did not - but the world was full of strange surprises and black velvet coats. 

He opened his sleepy eyes to stare at her, his chest rising and falling under the cover. 

“It was some time ago,” she continued. “And I was quite frightened, so perhaps I don’t do it proper justice. If you recall,  _ I _ thought we were on our way to Vichy.”

There’d been such a painful knot in her stomach and desperately she tried not to let it show, overtaken by the blooming realization that they were decidedly  _ not _ going to be attending to any curatives anytime soon. 

“Why?” Fabien asked, brow furrowing. He rolled his head on the pillow dismissively, eyes drifting shut again. “You were on the finest ship in France.”

“I suppose so,” Sophie said. “But it felt like it would take years to reach, and I was alone.”

“On a ship full of people, no doubt.”

“Without my mother, on a ship in the middle of the channel,” she corrected, a bit pointedly. “To wait on a Princess as she bargained with her brother, the King of England. Not exactly the most friendly situation.”

“Go on,” he prodded, ignoring her irritation.

“It was very gray, and cold, and windy,” she said, recalling the stroll up the dock with the Princess holding her arm, the shrill sound of the gulls wheeling above them and the men who looked on with their bright sea glass eyes and heavy brows and wiry limbs. 

How it was like walking a tightrope to step across the narrow gangway. She could feel her heart thudding against her chest and how very dry and chalky her mouth felt - the moment she stepped aboard she felt the cradle-rock of the water and her insides twisted upside down. 

“I got very sick, so I do not remember a great deal of the view. The wind was very awful,” she continued. 

She remembered the cramped quarters, the jewels of Henriette’s eyes close to her own, adoring over her. The  great pearl of Versailles stepped down from her pedestal in the heavens to sit with her, sick little lady in waiting, rubbing Sophie’s back in loving circles.

“Poor little dove,” she murmured, brushing the hair from Sophie’s face as she heaved over the pot they gave her. “Poor little dear - it is always difficult the first time.” She wiped Sophie’s mouth lovingly, Sophie crying out that she should not - what if she was ill, or worse - and Henriette only shook her perfect angelic head. She was so unbothered by the tumult of the ship, as if she barely noticed. 

“Please,” she crooned in her lilting fairy voice. “It will soon be over if the wind lets us pass. Besides, you’ve done so much for me and it is nice to play mother.” She gave Sophie a wan smile. 

Sophie nodded her head, swallowing the bile in her throat. To imagine a woman having to embark on such a challenge after so soon losing their own child. Henriette was ghostly pale and frailer than anyone would have guessed padded in her day clothes - Sophie saw how emaciated Henriette became following the miscarriage while attending to her during her morning toilette. 

Beatrice always reminded her that men preferred a woman with some give, but Sophie frustratingly remained reed thin and sharp-elbowed no matter how many sweets she ate. She was not used to having a sumptuous appetite, and her mother often fasted. As a girl she believed Beatrice when she spoke of how it fueled clarity of mind, but she easily understood it was for her sake - to not spare anything for her child. 

Sophie, sixteen and stupid, longed for a baby, even after playing witness to the results. 

She couldn’t overcome the urge for something so small and lovely to hold on her lap, in that little dip between her knees. Something to stare down and smile at, all pink and lacy. She did now, as well, in a secret part of her. A cupboard in her heart locked shut - to want after children was dangerous. 

Their entrance into the world was a painful spectacle. 

Still, to think of that little smallness - that thing nestled beside her, all her own, and smelling like her own, and tasting like it was her own, at least till it was grown and also a dumb young girl or boy - how wonderful. It was an abatement of loneliness, proof that someone loved her; but for Henriette there was no ownership to be had. As the woman had said: perhaps it was for the best. 

Sophie watched the hideous procedure with Henriette - had been honored to partake at first out of fitful curiosity and happiness to please - but, to imagine birth was so gruesome and to see what she had seen, and endure what the Princess endured - no matter what was said she knew that there was a great lingering sadness over Henriette; it was greater than the physical ailment, or maybe the cause all along. One couldn’t see bowls and blood and soft red things, as small and soft and red as a heart, and remain unmoved. 

Henriette rested her cheek on her shoulder and helped her back to bed when she was finished, the two of them lying together at Henriette’s insistence, shawls and covers drawn around them, the Princess’s bare toes curling on the edge of the sheet. 

She smiled shyly at Sophie in a way that communicated that here, between worlds, they were not bound by the same strict protocols; perhaps they were only two girls, getting to know one another, comforting each other.

Sophie’s nausea temporarily alleviated by the distraction of her talking, the charming twirl of her voice. How old was she? Only sixteen? Nearly a lady - and asking after her romantic interests, and grinning in delight as Sophie confessed what she thought of this, and that and  _ especially _ who. 

“You are such a sweet girl,” Henriette sighed, holding her hand at one point. “I used to be sweet, too.”

“You have shown me nothing but kindness,” Sophie stuttered. Henriette caught her tongue between her teeth, squeezing Sophie’s fingers. 

“You must call me Minette sometimes, because we are friends,” she said, kissing Sophie’s knuckle and giggling and Sophie nodded her head obediently. The Princess turned onto her back and wound a curl of her blonde hair around her finger then, sighing. “I am glad you are with me,” she laughed. “I think I would have withered if you were not.”

“The Princess had good sense,” Fabien said after a moment. “Having you near certainly has an effect.”

“I believe she only pitied me, which gave her some confidence,” Sophie laughed, tilting her mouth against the back of her hand. “I am sure I appeared quite pathetic by comparison in my state. Besides, I’d hardly say I bring good fortune.”

“You are a very lucky creature,” Fabien said lowly, staring at her with his fever bright eyes before looking away, up at the canopy of his bed. “You hang off of others like a talisman...” 

“I thought you didn’t subscribe to occult opinions like that,” she said, lifting her eyebrows slightly. 

“Of course I do,” he said gravely, turning to her again. “I made my business in their discovery.”

“Oh yes, your _métier_ ,” she said, smirking at him. His face remained unchanged.

“How did you come to the Caron’s,” he asked, taking a short breath. She paused, her face falling.  

“I was lent out by the convent as a maid,” she replied, brow furrowing. “I would have thought you knew that, inspector.” She tried to smile once more. 

“I do,” he said. “Which is why I know you are lying to me. You were certainly no maid, sleeping in their dead daughter’s room.”

Sophie’s mouth twitched and she looked down to her hands nervously. 

“There is no point in you pretending.”

“I was, for a time,” she said, responding carefully to the words. “But I knew they would not keep me for long when they saw how useless I was.”

Fabien said nothing now, and she kept her eyes in her lap. His silence was always the worst.

“I found the cook was skimming from their accounts,” she said. “So I told her that I would out her - unless she promoted me to them.” She’d spent many restless nights dreaming awful dreams that the Caron’s would learn the truth of her - the whole truth - and cast her out on the street. 

She knew it was a sin to lie, but she could only think she had already done far worse than letting an old cart maker and his wife pretend she was their daughter come back to them. 

What was giving herself some security, if she was doomed in the end anyway? She might never see such a slip of kindness again, and the two were not long for the Earth. 

“The rest must have been simple,” he whispered. “They were old fools. They did not even know the cook was picking their pockets. But that was not all.” 

His eyes were hard. 

“They told me I was pretty,” she continued. “At the convent. That men sometimes looked for wives - old men, widowers. To buy them, if they are young, and pretty enough.”

“They do,” Fabien said. 

“I was terrified that it would happen to me,” Sophie sighed, squeezing her hands together and then letting them go. 

“Because he would be cruel?” 

Sophie’s brow furrowed at the rumble of Fabien’s voice.  _ No _ , she wished to say, but she was not sure how to say it. She wasn’t so afraid of an impotent old man, if it had come to that.

“That they would learn that I had already known a man,” she said plainly, watching the white of her knuckles turn back to pink. “They believed I was unspoiled. I don’t know what sort of tests one conducts to find out such a thing, but surely I wouldn’t pass it.”

There were times she felt as though people looked and could easily see what she was; such hideous acts did not pass on, invisible, even when done under the perfectly sanctimonious ceremony of marriage. Nor did they evaporate with her gentleness toward Cassel in the end. He had harmed her beyond measurement - planted ugliness in her. 

“I suppose… that was of concern to you,” Fabien croaked, and she dared to think he sounded apologetic. 

“I suppose it was,” she whispered back to him, blithe. 

He narrowed his eyes at her, continuing his interrogation. 

“Why did you not try to find a husband - common men don’t worry over such,” he paused, gauging her response, as though he himself was not convinced of what word to use. “Limitations.” 

“Why didn’t  _ you _ busy yourself with finding a  _ wife _ ?” Sophie said, not giving him the satisfaction . Fabien blanched.

“It is unseemly, by the way, that you live here alone,” she continued, leaning forward. “And people  _ will _ find out you have a  young girl living here, with you, if they have not already. They are sure to be curious of it. I am sure right now they are grilling Lafargue about you.” 

“They think nothing of me,” he muttered darkly. “And I them. Which is what I prefer.”

“I think you’d make a fine husband,” she said, tilting her head against her hand.

“Pardon?” He said it with such honest surprise she nearly laughed - and even more because he could barely say the word because of the condition of his voice. 

“You are not so bad to look at, especially if you were to wear a black velvet coat or something of that sort,” she teased, touching her chin. He scowled, turning his head away.  
  
"You have a secret or two, Fabien," she said, trying not to smile so much. 

“You are giving me a headache," was all he managed, flushed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay <3 we should be back on track now


	9. sept

vii

 

*

 

To her shock, Lafargue suggested it in lieu of “making up for time lost” within her studies, which she could not pay attention to, finding herself more and more lost looking at the tapestry in her room or at nothing in particular at all. It was difficult, she was finding, to let herself be so still after doing things out of doors for several days, or to satisfy her body of the excitement it had been suffering by maintaining good posture. 

“You’ve been cooped up here for days,” the woman said, putting the gloves on her hands as though she were a little child. “You need a bit of sun, or else you will get a case of melancholia - besides,” she continued, droll as ever. “I have things to attend to this afternoon.”

“Like what,” Sophie asked, curious, and Lafargue looked at her from beneath her thin gray lashes, winding a knit shawl around the girl’s shoulders. Sophie had given back Fabien’s coat at last - more like relinquished it, as she found the weight of it far superior against the cold than anything she owned - and accepted the more feminine article with a grain of dissatisfaction. 

“None of your business, young lady,” Lafargue said mysteriously, flicking her eyes back down. “I have much catching up to do, and that requires me to go into town for this afternoon. I will be back before sundown,” she finished, satisfied with her work. Sophie made a disappointed sound, hanging her head to one side.

“Can’t I go along?” she pleaded. “I can carry your basket -”It was an entirely futile gesture, she knew there was no winning this argument ; it was one they’d had several times already. 

Sophie wasn’t to be taken into town until she was properly introduced, to avoid the risk of stirring up talk. Lafargue refused to permit it because of the  _ gawkers _ they would certainly encounter and that it was impolite practice to have her appearing in public without her chaperone when the time came. 

“It will be  boring business,” the housekeeper said, turning her around and  walking her towards the hall. “Take the air, and stretch your legs. There’s been enough moping out of you to last me a lifetime...”

Sophie pouted, stopping in her tracks and twisting around to face the housekeeper. 

“I’m going  _ mad _ ,” Sophie emphasized. “I don’t have anyone to talk to.”

Lafargue narrowed her eyes and took her hands from Sophie’s back, to rest her fists upon her waist. 

“Of my own age,” Sophie clarified, dropping her voice to a whisper. “If he wants me to find a husband so desperately he should at least let me  _ look _ ,” she continued, giving Lafargue a labored look. The woman remained unmoved. “And what am I to talk about when I eventually meet these people? We don’t even attend  _ mass _ ,” she stressed, crossing her arms over her middle and leaning in to look Lafargue in the eye. “Just that Priest coming to deliver communion as though Fabien cannot go himself - you  _ know _ he only prefers the excuse.”

She rolled her eyes at the thought of Father Barthes, and how she had to keep from nodding off each time he came to the house to deliver the rites while Fabien sat with his cane as though he could not walk  _ at all _ . 

“First I would advise that you do not worry yourself over the insignificance of socializing,” Lafargue interrupted, and Sophie shut her mouth in irritation. “Secondly, the manners in which this household attends to their spiritual duties is not up for discussion between you and me, but between Monsieur, Father Barthes - God keep him - and the Lord. And finally,” the woman said, leaning towards Sophie, her gray eyes stern. “Don’t think that just because you have been on your own a few days that you know how everything proceeds. If you are a gracious and obedient girl, and do as I tell you without so much comment,  _ perhaps _ you will find that situations may shift in your favor.”

She raised her thin eyebrows at Sophie who worked her jaw and sighed, drawing back in defeat.

“Now, it is a  _ fine _ day for a walk,” Lafargue said, cementing her words, prodding Sophie on. “And Etienne will keep you company.”

Sophie softened a bit at the thought of at least being able to have some time with the young man. It was better than nothing. In the kitchen Souci was stretched before the fire, raising his head only to look at them and then lay it back down, tail whapping the ground happily. 

“I suppose  _ you _ won’t be coming along,” Sophie said, and Souci squealed a long yawn, rolling over and wriggling a bit to get more comfortable. “You are too tired and fat, little traitor.” He had long found his new favorite - Fabien’s sickly lack of interest in food meant that he was doling out scraps left and right and Souci was more than accommodating. She was surprised, in all honesty, to see him out from under Fabien’s feet at all. 

“I will apologize in advance, my son is no conversationalist,” Lafargue continued, taking her right up to the back door and out into the snow, which was nowhere as deep as it had been. Sophie stepped down into it into it more confidently wearing boots that Lafargue had brought along from her daughter in law’s; the woman apparently could not longer fit into them due to her swollen feet and the weight gain of pregnancy, but there was no reason they had to sit somewhere being useless. They were a tad big, but with wool stockings Sophie managed to fill them out well.

“He’s promised to take you up the hill and back down,  _ no _ visiting the river,” Lafargue instructed, holding up a finger in grim warning. “It’s only half frozen and I will not believe what he says. God forbid either of you should fall in.”

“You promise to come back,” Sophie sighed, turning to look back at the woman standing stiffly in the doorway. 

“What have I told you about impudent questions,” she said, shooing her.“Now go on - and enjoy yourself.” 

“Of course, of course,”Sophie muttered, pulling the shawl around her, trying to situate it over her hair so she wouldn’t catch so much sun trudging towards the barn -  for one moment she turned over her shoulder, looking up to one of Fabien’s windows. It was surprising to not see him looming there and glaring down jealousy at her being allowed outside like a punished school boy - he was on strict orders of bedrest till Lafargue gave him pass, though Sophie heard him creaking and shuffling about every now and again. 

He was not the only one with rules to follow; Lafargue had not let her anywhere near him either. 

Up ahead Etienne waited by the barn, holding the two horses by the bridle, though when he saw her he straightened up and took his cap from off his head, waving it.

She couldn’t help but smile a little at the sight of him - he was handsome enough, with the sort of build one developed from climbing trees or running foot races, his long lean arms and legs muscled and quick from swimming in ponds and wrestling older brothers. His hair, a bit darkened from short winter days, when not caught under the cap, was tied in a messy tail to keep it out of the way. 

As she drew closer she began to feel a brush of shyness come over her, not only because he had been away for several days, but also because she did not regularly engage him in much beyond a stiff pleasantry or two. He was a figure seldom seen inside, relegated to the grounds and at times the kitchen, and when he was not chopping wood or taking care of the horses he was in what his mother caustically referred to as  _ dens of sin _ .

Not that she didn’t spy on him a good deal, or consider that perhaps he was the only youthful person she may encounter for the rest of her life (that was what it _felt_ like, at least). Being stranded alone with Fabien had only increased her awareness that, like it or not, she was properly confined to the house and oblivious to what went on i n _Guéret_ ’s social circles. 

“Mademoiselle,” he called cheerfully, giving her a broad, toothy smile. She watched him take a good gulp of the cold air and let it out like dragon smoke. “Are you well this morning?”

“Yes, I am,” Sophie said, finding her voice, her hand automatically coming out to pet at Bisou when she was close enough to touch her. The mare nuzzled into her shoulder, making to nibble at her clothes and Sophie stroked the animals lovely soft nose. 

“I hope they did not suffer too much while you were away,” she said, looking guiltily into Minos’ inky black eyes that only looked impassively back at her. She didn’t need to be told that she fell short caring for them.

“Not these two imps,” Etienne laughed, giving Minos a strong pat on his thick neck. “They’re sturdy,” he nodded, looking up at the stallion. “Especially my good fellow - he just needs to warm his blood a bit after loafing in the barn for a week!”

He smiled at Sophie and Sophie smiled gratefully back, still petting Bisou’s velvety muzzle with her gloved hand. 

“ _ You _ did not suffer, did you Mademoiselle?” he said lightly, and Sophie laughed.

“Only my looks,” she lamented, looking down at her feet. “I must have been a frightful sight - I don’t believe I had seen a mirror in all that time.”

“Oh, not at all,” Etienne said staunchly, beginning to lead them towards the comfortable slope of the hill, Bisou following Sophie like a dog on a lead by her tether. In truth, the lady was back to her usual radiance now, properly made up because his mother had returned and she was able to be assisted as usual - but he wouldn’t dare say something like that, and it wasn’t as if she were ugly. He’d done his fair share of bragging on her behalf; she might have been the most divine girl in all of France if not for his own sweetheart. Or, at least, that was his opinion. 

“I must apologize, to you,” Sophie said, falling into step with him easily despite her skirts. “For my...unladylike behavior.

Etienne smiled to himself, not needing her to explain further the moment he could perfectly recall. 

When they’d arrived Etienne could barely get in the door - first because of the snow, of which there was still a decent amount - and secondly because Sophie threw her arms around him the moment it opened. It had been quite a week, and the unannounced reception nearly knocked him entirely off balance.

The boy speechlessly received her, unable to form any sensible reaction to the way Sophie flung herself into him, her hands squeezing around his back over his coat, her pretty head pressing desperately against his sweaty neck and shoulder. 

“M-Miss,” he stuttered, dumbly patting her back, sending an even dumber prayer to God that the master of the house wouldn’t spy such a sight. He had been thoroughly warned that he was not to be what the  _ Comte _ referred to as a  _ rough _ with the new lady, and what his mother rejected as  _ artless seduction _ \- which, to him, was only mild flirtation at best. He assumed he could not be blamed, however, if he was not the one being so forward. 

“Thank God,” she sighed. “I thought you’d never come,” she gave him another desperate (to his mind  _ desperate _ ) squeeze and then withdrew to let him in, opening the door a bit wider. 

“I’m sorry it took a bit longer,” Etienne tried to explain, finally gaining access to his tongue, only to be cut off when his mother came impatiently from up behind him. 

“Out of the way boy - I’m freezing to death, and you’re letting all the warm out,” she sniped, running right into Sophie who immediately reached for her too, blocking them both in the entrance. It was funny to see his mother speechless for a second, being shocked at the affection.

Finally she picked up a hank of Sophie’s hair where she could see it over her shoulder. “This is a bird’s nest...have you not touched a comb in a week, girl?”

“We brought enough food to feed an army,” Etienne said before Sophie could truly answer, peeking over his mother’s head now. He tried to gesture with the heavy sack he had slung over his back but Sophie did not appear to care very much about the bread and meat and cheese and crock of pudding he’d brought all the way from home, as she was busy kissing his mother’s cold cheek and hanging off of her like a little child.

“ _ Please _ don’t leave again,” she whined, Lafargue shaking her head in dismay and pushing Sophie out to have a long look at her, holding her by her shoulders. Etienne quietly allowed them to step more inside, shutting the door behind him - but not before raising his tired hand to to his brother in the sleigh on the drive. 

Valere waved back, obscured in his muffler and cap, before whistling to the horse that pulled him off with a lurch. In the back of the sleigh his two oldest nieces were cuddled like kittens together under a heavy blanket, waving at their uncle over the back as they glided out of sight. Etienne sighed, hand dropping to his side, and pushed the door hard against the cold air, latching it. 

“What in God’s name are you wearing?” Lafargue interrogated, taking in the coat draped over Sophie’s shoulders.    
  
Etienne immediately recognized it, and his eyes widened in surprise. 

“I borrowed it,” Sophie explained, drawing it closer around her and then leaning in as though she was worried of being heard. “He’s been sick.” 

“Sick?” Lafargue immediately pulled her hands away to tug her mittens off, feeling Sophie’s face.  “Your color is good,” she murmured, touching the girl’s warm cheeks with the back of her fingers. “That’s well enough… you say he’s getting on?” 

“I think so,” Sophie hesitated. “I’ve done my best to keep him in bed - and he seems to be improving. He was able to get up a bit this morning. And he ate.” Etienne watched as she played with one of the buttons on the coat, twisting it slightly. 

“Appetite is a good sign,” Lafargue sighed, smacking her mittens against the palm of her hand, snapping him back to attention.  

“Somethin’s goin’ round,” Etienne offered. He was hefting the bag awkwardly, wincing at the weight. “Half the tavern’s gotten it,” he continued, a bit brighter. “Nobody dead,” he elaborated when Lafargue and Sophie looked to him. 

“I won’t hear any more talk of course subjects,” Lafargue said grimly. “Now take that in to the kitchen and then go see how everything has faired.”

“Yes ma’am,” Etienne smiled, moving past the them, doing as he was told. 

“But not with  _ Monsieur _ , I mean,” Etienne amended, shifting Minos’ path slightly. “I hope you did not suffer with him - or over him. You’re too gentle to see a man like that.”

“Oh,” Sophie replied, considering a moment and absorbing the odd compliment at once. “No - he was not so terrible, being so ill,” she paused, and Etienne watched her look down to the white ground once more. “I think it was more the opposite.”

“I doubt it,” Etienne replied, and the lady looked up, a bit surprised. Etienne nodded to himself. “You seem to have an understanding of each other - you and Monsieur that is.”

“He tolerates me,” Sophie was quick to explain. “There are many,” she weighed the word. “ _ Agreements _ between us, that’s all.” 

“Is that so? I figured you were closer,” Etienne mused and Sophie furrowed her brow. “He was away many months, before you came,” Etienne said, looking over the hill. “Wouldn’t tell a soul where he was going - not that he tells a soul much otherwise. But I suppose now he was looking for you very zealously! Course, seeing you I couldn’t blame him.”

“He doesn’t perform most things with… zeal,” Sophie said flatly, pausing for a moment as Bisou shook her head.

“I didn’t think so,” the boy agreed. “But then again  _ I  _ certainly don’t understand him.”

“He is not a forthcoming man,” Sophie sighed. 

“Did you know him when he was a killer?”

Sophie nearly stopped all together at the brazenness of the question before reminding herself that she was walking with little more than a stable boy - a young man used to bawdy songs and dirty jokes with his playmates - who was unversed in the finer points of propriety. 

“I mean to say, I have a friend who was in the army, and he knew a man who said  _ Fabien Marchal  _ was the devil himself,” Etienne rambled, taking her silence as reflective and not stunned. He had lowered his voice,  nearly comically, though they were half a mile from the house and there was no chance in the world that Fabien would be hearing them from that distance regardless of circulating fabrications. “I won’t forget that, he said  _ Fabien Marchal would sooner put you on the rack then put you to work for him _ …”

“He was in service to the King,” Sophie said slowly, not knowing why she did not simply assert that his friend was more or less correct. “And much devoted to that occupation.”

“That’s what I told my friend,” Etienne added, glancing at her, seeming resolute. “I told him not to go spreading ugly tales. A man like that’s got to have a degree of privacy, what with that profession, and it’s very serious work.”

Sophie was able to feign a forgiving smile, the wind rushing over them suddenly and making her face tingle. 

“Did you know him then, though?” Etienne insisted, voice raising, unable to curb his curiosity. Sophie held the shawl tighter to her. 

“Yes,” she answered, allowing herself to fall back a little so that Bisou might block more of the wind. “I was a bit younger,” she said evenly. “He was exceptional and quite frightening...”   
  
“That must have been something,” the boy said, shaking his head in honest disbelief. “I cannot imagine Monsieur acting with such a ruthless temperament...”

It occurred to Sophie, in a way that it had not before, that Etienne had no conception of Fabien beyond what he saw presiding over the house: an austere and discreet employer with a well of bloodthirsty rumors following him. Rumors that certainly sounded more fantastic than true, even for a country boy. After all, they were propagated by young army men around campfires and respun around the tavern hearth while everyone eagerly and drunkenly waited to hear those ugly tales. _. _

He got ill, he had a bad leg, he was certainly no infallible otherworldly being - dark and clever - prowling the secret corridors of Versailles. He loved roast chicken and his horse and reading. 

“I’m glad that he found you,” Etienne went on, breaking her thoughts. Sophie nearly stopped short, but there was no need to; Etienne was slowing them to a halt as they were quite far up the hillside now. The crows were long gone, having found other places to play since she saw them. The wind swept over again and she longed once more for his coat. 

“He does not have many confidantes, so to have someone who knows him must be a relief.”

Sophie didn’t know what to say. 

“Of course, it was good for you as well Mademoiselle - the world is very dangerous,” Etienne hurried on. “It’s much better that you are here with someone to protect you.”

“His men were very loyal to him, too. It’s no surprise that he’s gotten the concern of someone more sweet,” Sophie replied, doing her best not to sound awkward. 

If she had the mind could take one of the horses. It would be nothing to achieve; only a little feigned tiredness after all the exercise. Etienne would help her up, and though he might have a hand on the reigns it wouldn’t stop her. She could run, and run, and run, into the white, till she was far away - nothing but a ghost, or a story. She knew it was difficult, but it wasn’t so impossible. She was already the farthest from the house she’d been in weeks, and Fabien was in no shape to come riding after her.  _ I doubt that would stop him _ , she considered, and to her confusion the things she told herself did not hold the same bite anymore. They were amused. 

“I love coming up here. You can really see everything - it’s such a fine house,” Etienne preened, both of them turning their attention to it. She looked down, at that gray square below them. It had a dreary outward appearance at first - especially now, when the grounds and trees were bare and covered in snow. and the sun hid behind clouds - and from this vantage she could see scorch marks licking up the back side. But there was a good deal of light in the windows, and smoke coming from the chimney.

“Beggin’ your pardon Miss Sophie you must be freezing,” Etienne said worriedly. “Shall we go back down?”

As she rode from Versailles she buried her old self.  _ Let her die _ , she vowed. 

She had hurt enough for that lifetime, it was a decency to put the past to rest. She never believed she’d hear her own name again. She thought she’d hidden it so deep it could never be found.

“I was just imagining what it will look like, come spring,” Sophie said, and as she did she found she’d wound her hand in Bisou’s lead, an anchor to the earth. 

“Oh, there are so many flowers,” Etienne marveled. “You wouldn’t even recognize it.”

* * *

 

Lafargue certainly kept her promise.

“ _ Madame. _ ”   
  
Sophie and the woman looked up in unison, finding Fabien standing in the doorway to the parlor. He’d finally been released from his imprisonment some days ago, but the sight of him upright, dressed, and installed in his usual  __ demeanor was proving to be a continuous surprise to Sophie.

“Might I have a word with you,” he said, and at the sound of his voice Sophie felt her blood run cold and all the amazement of seeing him evaporated in an instant. She swiveled her head to the woman seated across from her, who said nothing in reply, but merely raised her chin and straightened her shoulders.

“Of course, Monsieur,” she said cooly, blinking only once at him. “But if you would not mind, I am in the middle of polishing your silver.”

She was, and when Fabien looked and saw all his affects gathered onto the table in front of her, his face took on a darkness so roiling Sophie fought the urge to run from the room. 

“Very well,” he said, voice acidic, and Sophie felt Souci get up from her feet to scoot behind her legs and tuck under her chair. 

“When you have a  _ moment _ ,” he continued, and then his dark eyes settled on Sophie, forcing her heart to skip. “You  _ and _ the Mademoiselle - as I have no doubt that this was a collusion,” each word was over enunciated and only tightened the fist of dread clenching in her stomach. Before she could plead to him, however, he turned and stalked away leaving a wake of slammed doors ringing through the downstairs rooms. 

“Temper, temper,” Lafargue muttered, picking up her cloth once more, the room filling with the rasping silty sound of her polishing the silver to a gleam. 

“Did - I haven’t done anything, have I,” Sophie whispered, racking her brain for evidence of a foul up, coming up with nothing.

“Of course not,” Lafargue scoffed, examining the chalice she held and holding it up to the bluish light coming through the window. She shook her head, buffing a bit more.    
  
“Then, perhaps you may  _ inform _ me of why he sounded so murderous?” Sophie pried, reaching down to pet Souci whose ears were plastered to his head more to soothe herself than the dog.

Lafargue sighed, setting the chalice back upon the table with the others, satisfied for the moment. Sophie evaluated her, but couldn’t share the ease of the older woman’s attitude.  Her heart, overcoming its pause, was now beating at an accelerated rate, and her mouth was dry - she did not prefer him in this light. 

“I have taken a bit of liberty,” Lafargue began, picking up a slim knife. She began to polish it, utilizing more caution despite the knife being small, and probably dull. “And, as I anticipated, he is being quite foolish.” 

She sniffed, using one hand to dab at her nose a bit - the silty concoction she was using with the rag irritating her. Sophie attempted to envision what a liberty appeared as for the housekeeper; an extra order of something? One more sack of grain? A bit of money set aside for herself? None of it fit the image of Lafargue who kept her books so neatly and put everything in its perfectly relegated place. 

“Did you not think he would notice?” Sophie levied, Fabien well out of earshot. “He has a rather keen eye to be considered a fool.”

You will learn that _ all _ men are fools,” Lafargue said bluntly, bringing the knife closer to her gray eyes to see it better. “Even men as  _ keen _ as him...”

“Madame Lafargue,” Sophie said. “Please pardon me for sounding ignorant, but I fail to see how you can be so relaxed. He is not a man I would want reckon with insensibly.”

“Ridiculous,” Lafargue huffed, setting the knife back down on the table with a clatter, startling Souci. She looked at Sophie wide-eyed, dabbing at her nose again. “Come then, and see what all this fuss is about,” the old woman clucked. “Everything must be a drama...”

She stood up without ceremony, and Sophie scrambled to follow, gathering her skirts and rushing after her. Souci rose, shaking himself out, ears clapping against his head, trotting behind with his fear forgotten. 

When they came upon Fabien he was looming over a piece of paper, not looking up when Lafargue entered, stepping right up to the edge of his desk. Sophie hovered near the door, unwilling to let herself fully into the room. 

Fabien glanced up at her from the slip, which Sophie could see now was on fine paper with a broken wax seal and ribbons trailing on the desk. He looked angry still, but also perplexed, and she felt her eyebrows raise; at the expression of her surprise his face darkened, going gloomy, and he scowled at her and then the slip again, flicking it towards Lafargue. 

“Now that I have your full attention,” he grit, leaning forward to glare up at Lafargue. “Perhaps you may explain why I have received this dispatch.”

The woman crossed her arms over her chest. 

“Childish,” Lafargue scolded, snatching the piece of paper from where it lay. “A man with land and title brooding over an invitation.”

Sophie suddenly brought her hand up to fuss with her necklace. 

“How curious,” Fabien growled. “As it expresses that I have agreed to the terms of an invitation I have no recollection of receiving, Madame.” 

Lafargue scanned the letter and then folded it neatly, holding it out for him to take back.    
  
“Further, I do not appreciate my  _ housekeeper _ making decisions for me and disobeying her orders.”

“An invitation? To what? Where?” Sophie felt heat rise to her face in horror. She did not think she’d said it outloud and nearly clapped her own hands over her mouth. To her relief Fabien was set on blatantly ignoring her, or at least pretending to. 

“Monsieur has been invited to celebrate Epiphany at the Chateaux de Raspail - an invitation that he has  _ declined _ for nearly three years in a row,” Lafargue answered for him, looking at Sophie over her shoulder and then pressing her look down on Fabien who, to Sophie’s amazement, leaned back and away from it. “ _ And _ since it is my duty as your housekeeper, you entrusted to me the preparations for the celebration of our Lord’s birth and the care of your reputation, which I took to mean that it was within my jurisdiction to prepare for such an event.” 

“That was not our agreement,” Fabien resisted, glowering, hands tight on the arms of his chair. “I told you to make arrangements for the  _ household _ .”

“Which I did,” Lafargue replied. “By sending the formal reply myself, and securing other advancements - such as proper clothes for Mademoiselle. And yourself.” 

Fabien snatched the note out of Lafargue’s hand, which she was still holding out to him. 

“You spent nearly double your month’s allowance on this fruitless notion,” he uttered, and wordlessly he crumpled the letter into his fist.“I should deduct it from your salary.” He looked at the woman with nothing but scorn, and Sophie’s eyes flicked helplessly to Lafargue’s thin back. The woman did not flinch. 

“You will write to them immediately and correct this,” Fabien continued. “I have no use for such diversions.”

“I will do whatever you see fit,” Lafargue answered. “However, you harm not only your reputation, but the reputation of the Mademoiselle by rejecting this opportunity. It will reflect poorly on her, and create a stir among the pool of her potential suitors most if not all of whom, I need not remind you, will be in attendance.” 

Fabien, who was now scrawling something insignificant and unintelligible on a scrap sheet paused his writing.

“We agreed that the Mademoiselle would not be debuted until the spring,” he said carefully, his eyes sliding to Sophie who swallowed and tried to make herself look as innocent as possible to him. “Or did you misinterpret that direction as well.” 

“When you told me you were bringing me a girl who had run herself into poor company I expected to devote all of my faculties to improving her,” Lafargue said. “You failed to mention to me that she was a young woman well studied and refined in her manners and character and unmatched in grace and style. It is humorless to believe that there is anything  _ I _ can do that would make her any more than what she already is.”

He stared at her, her slim fingers toying with her necklace and her face, all eyes, with its flushed cheeks at the rare compliment.  She met his gaze, and he saw that while she was flustered, there was also a violent desire, a contained excitement that had burned more the longer he looked, like sun on the back of his neck.

“Further,” Lafargue continued, a bit lower, between the two of them. “I have heard that Captain Delémance and Monsieur Pomier are home from Toulon for the holiday. They will certainly be there.”

Fabien’s mouth drew into a taut line, face going blank. 

“Why won’t you go?” Sophie demanded eagerly before she pulled her voice back, more discerning. Her eyes narrowed playfully, still holding his. “You’re not  _ scared _ of some little soiree, are you?” 

His jaw ticked, annoyance crawling over his brow. 

“What good am I for those goings ons,” he said gruffly, flicking his eyes away, twirling the pen in his fingertips slightly. He looked back to the paper, as though he were poised to write his declination right then and there. “I have had my fill of frivolity,” he continued. “And I am content to remain here, as I am.” 

“ _ You _ may be content, but I am not,” Sophie insisted. “And they are your neighbors, and of your rank,” she continued, taking a casual step towards the desk. “Declining yet another invitation would reflect poorly on you - as Madame has said - and you know it. You know how such things operate.”

He scowled at her, but did not contest. She took another step, ignoring how Lafargue stared at her from the corner of her eye. 

“If you do not go they will grow suspicious of you and you will become of even more interest to them. If you go and bore them to tears, well…” 

Fabien fought the urge to roll his eyes, looking instead at where her hand now rested on the edge of the desk. She was close enough now that he could catch her perfume, which he could detect more easily now that his head was not stuffed and heavy, sweet and overripe like fruit and he could practically taste it - the nectar of it. Pollen and port wine. Candied oranges. 

“It could benefit us both for me to meet new people,” she insisted.

He said nothing.

“I kept you alive. You owe me a bit of fun,” she continued and at this Fabien looked up at her, and her smile was sly. So they were bargaining, now. 

“I am not taking you just to bewitch some gallant,” he said flatly. “And I do not owe you anything.”

“Not to seduce anyone,” she huffed. She put her hand on her hip, tilting her head at him like he was stupid. 

“To make  _ you _ look better,” she asserted. “That’s what we’re for, isn’t it?” she added, referring to her womanhood. “To be charming and witty? If they’re busy conversing with me, they won’t even bother with you. You can sit and watch, as you always do.”

Fabien gave her a labored look and she nearly bit her tongue. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so honest with him, but it was always arranged that way between the two of them. She knew his avoidance was not what he wished for it to appear as. 

She knew the truth. 

He was well aware of his own shortcomings - lack of talent for any kind of topical conversation being his primary handicap. There was no doubt in her mind the thought of engaging with the gentry of Guéret filled him with embarrassment and dread. A hunt, maybe, or a few short words exchanged on a more modest Holy Day, perhaps, but to spend hours, threatening to turn into days, whiling away in a salon playing outrageous games was surely Fabien’s personal nightmare. 

“You  _ are _ a Comte now,” she continued. “You should try to act like it, or the King will certainly be displeased. Who knows,  _ you _ might even meet someone,” the words left her mouth and her hands folded in front of her skirt. Fabien did not move, except to sit back in his chair, staring out the window. There was a lapse of silence and Sophie looked to Lafargue, who seemed to incent her. 

“Watch your derision, girl,” he said sourly after his thought, studying her smug little face. “Not so long ago you were a Duchess, I would not go about lecturing  _ me _ on how one earns his titles.” 

She said nothing, didn’t even flinch, immune to his criticism.

“It’s only a party,” Sophie said. “You’ve seen those before. A bit of supper, a bit of merriment… introductions will take up half of it. Before you know it would be over. The great Fabien Marchal can handle that, can he not?”

He leaned back in his chair, sighing heavily, hand coming to rub his chin in agitation. 

“People will think you do not believe in God,” she said, tilting her face down into his line of sight, blind to his discontent. He stared at her face, at her dark babyish eyes. 

“For introductions,” he said, looking immediately down. “And the meal. I do not care for what comes after.”

“Going all the way there for only supper is pointless,” she argued. “It’s  _ Epiphany _ . Besides, no great conversation ever is accomplished during dining - and we must stay and see who is king- and if there’s dancing -” 

“Absolutely not,” he interrupted, rubbing his fingers together, elbow resting on his chair, like he twiddled a coin. 

“ _ One _ dance,” she said, leaning forward again, her face coming closer to his from across the desk. She looked straight into his eyes, smiling wryly. “One dance, with any fellow I choose - and you can smoke or sit or do whatever it is gentlemen do. Regale them with all your gruesome stories as the King’s spymaster, and  _ then _ , once they are convinced of your nature, they will be more than happy to part with us.”

He leaned forward, matching her stare now, eyes dark and clouded so that she could not read them - he had put up a mirror and all she could see was herself gazing back. 

“ _ One _ dance,” he said dryly, holding up a finger. 

“I will not disappoint you,” she said, and if she said anything after he did not hear it because she bent over the desk and kissed his cheek to show her gratefulness, her hands covering his own for a brief moment so she wouldn’t fall into him. 

“Out,” he said loudly, pulling his hands from under hers. “Both of you. I’ve heard enough.”

“You will not punish Madame, will you?” Sophie tacked on, Lafargue taking her arm to pull her out of the room. 

“Out,” he repeated. 

“Shh,” the Lafargue whispered into her ear. “You’ve said quite enough.” 

Sophie gave him one last glittering look over her shoulder; his head was bowed, his quill scratching rapidly. She bit her lip to hide her giddiness. 

As she entered the hall she could not help herself, her mouth unfolding into a wild grin, Lafargue shutting the door behind them, leaving Fabien alone. 

A party, she thought, almost deliriously. The adrenaline of before moulded into thudding excitement. 

A party - with games, and people, and food. With  _ music _ . Her heart began to beat harder and she picked up her skirts, rushing to her room. With men, and women, and most certainly dancing, and perhaps something else? She did not know what society in Guéret was like. What entertainment one would provide. Singing, and  _ dancing _ and music - certainly music. There had to be. 

She skipped, giggling with excitement. 

She would be the most delectable, the most wonderful, the most perfect accompaniment any one would dream. She would put Lafargue’s words to the test, being so courteous, so groomed, so lovely, and she’d feel all the warm affection she’d missed like sunshine on a flower’s face. She’d be able to splash in it like a duck in water. She could talk to women, make  _ friends _ , those crucial female associations she had longed for with so much of her heart.

Her mind raced - she would have to thoroughly interview Lafargue so that she would be better prepared and not stumble. 

She ran into her room, going straight for the chest, throwing open the lid to stare inside. She pulled out the clothes cloistered there, laying them out on her bed like swatches of paint: bodices, stomacher, skirts, stays, stockings - her eyes roaming over her modest inventory. She had sensible walking shoes, heels, the boots. A pair of mules that she did not wear often might do the trick. She picked at her lip.

“Which would be better,” she said, knowing Lafargue had followed her. The woman came to her side, looking down on the pile of garments. 

“None,” she said simply, picking up a bit of fabric and releasing it. “I would not allow it.”

“Have you really had things made up already,” Sophie said cautiously. Lafargue’s mouth twisted even more and she stepped forward, touching Sophie’s face and a curl of her hair in an appraising manner.  

“You heard him,” she said, eyes dancing with mischief. “I put his fortune to work for once.”

She’d been patiently waiting for this sort of moment for three frustrating years. 

As a reasonable and professional woman she knew her job was to ensure the status of her employer, not just keep him fed. For those first few months she labored to convince him to attend at least one gathering - he had many fine features, both physical and otherwise. His seriousness, while offputting, was also one that demanded respect and she wished for him to embrace it and in turn be embraced by others.

For the sake of her own pride she thought the house might someday be filled with activity - it would mean she’d performed well. His dependable servant, there to oversee all the goings ons. 

_ Of course, it took that cunning little thing less than a minute to change his mind _ , she thought, reading the delight on Sophie’s face. Her beauty, now fueled by her happiness, glowed from her in a way which on some other girl it would be obnoxious.

She knew how miserable it must have been for her until now, living like a nun. She was young. She wanted to play, have confidants, romance. 

Lafargue’s mind went to the way she’d kissed his cheek.

She prayed she was not getting ahead of herself.

 

* * *

 

The house blazed with light, the square windows on the front facade spilling the glow from their casements. It was a large, gothic house - castle like - and Sophie nearly stuck her head out the window of the carriage in order to look at it more properly, gasping at the sight of society amassing at the front doors, the long line waiting to be unloaded by stoic footmen. 

Fabien watched her from his corner, gloved fist under his chin, staring at the tilt and spin of her earrings under her cape as she twisted herself about to see better, moving her head. She bit her painted lip in excitement, face a delicate pink, nearly squirming out of her seat. He took a soft breath, glancing out the window, losing his mind to the sound of the horses and the stuttering start and stop of the carriage. 

Valere brought the horses to a stop and there was a trundle as he climbed down from his seat, opening the door of the carriage as the two footmen Sophie had been watching approached to assist. He could not remember the last time he’d called on Lafargue’s older son, nor the last time he’d even taken his carriage out. Etienne had a fine time detaching all the cobweb from it, to be sure.

To his chagrin the snow had finally melted over the weeks, leaving the muddy frost-bitten road and patches of scrubby grass - a flurry now and then fell in between but none stuck no matter how much he prayed it would.

There would be no excusing it, or turning back now. 

“Pardon me,” Valere grumbled, moving in front of one and peering in at Fabien who sighed, audibly this time. Without a rush he passed Valere his cane and then made the work of extracting himself, ducking past Sophie in a brush of black from his coat. 

She smiled to herself, feeling the delicious plush of the black velvet against her exposed hand as he went. 

Once situated outside and upright, Fabien reached his hand out to her, which she gratefully took, stepping down onto the ground beside him and straightening. The footmen looked slightly surprised and she eyed them, still holding her lips in a coy smirk, slipping her arm through Fabien’s to continue up the drive and into the house. 

In another moment she may have felt self conscious being so close to him, but now it felt perfectly natural due to the circumstances - an old rhythm she was so used to she could do it in her sleep. The only difference being that she had to slow herself, waiting for him to adjust after the tedious ride, his gait a bit unsteady for a few steps before seamlessly smoothing into a predictable pattern. She looked at his cane, the smart polished ivory head of it in his hand, and wondered if it was squirreled away in his rooms or if it was new.

Either way, Lafargue had outdone herself.

She could truly feel the velvet under her fingers now, the way they sank into it. The details were so gorgeous, gold embroidery lining the collar and cuffs and down the front. She could not see what others were wearing, or what the fashions of such a place might be, but she knew that dressed up even Fabien looked his part, and black was always in fashion. The only difference being the modest jabot round his neck and over his chest - never more than one or two tiers - and tied by a plain black ribbon. 

He cleared his throat, catching her eye and looking back at the front of the house, the door open and warm and welcoming. She leaned in, the two of them coming to a stop behind several people waiting to be escorted in. 

“I dare say you look the part,” she murmured, voicing her thought, lips close enough to nearly brush his hair, which was perpetually hanging over his ears. 

He grunted in response, and Sophie drew away. She adjusted her arm within his and he moved as well, still looking straight ahead.

The woman in front of them turned over her shoulder to see who they were and Sophie smiled, watching the woman try to place them. She must have met Fabien’s gaze, as she quickly turned her attention back to her husband. 

Sophie touched the tip of her tongue to her teeth and leaned in again, still watching the woman’s back as they all shuffled forward in the line. 

“To remind you,” she began. “You are to be  _ personable _ to  _ some degree _ …” her eyes slid back to him, expecting to see his profile in stark relief as she had before, but this time, she nearly bumped her nose against his, drawing back with a short sound. He eyed her, smirking, turning his attention to the great hall now becoming more clear through the foyer. 

“And what do you say counts as personable,” he murmured. 

“Well,” Sophie began, whispering. “An attempt at conversation, meeting the eyes of others...and not to intimidate anyone…pleasantries, a congenial attitude...”

“I don’t intend on making any arrests, if that is what worries you,” Fabien hushed, and this time it was he that turned and said it against her ear. 

Sophie’s breath stilled, and then came again. She could not reply, as they were being ushered into the vast room, the fireplace blazing in front of them, casting incredible animating light onto the tapestries hung everywhere and the great oriental rugs spread out upon the floor. She marveled at it, allowing the servants to take away her outer garments without even acknowledging them. 

The house was a medieval relic, a 13th century fortress that Lafargue boasted survived the hundred years war and housed trespassing Kings, and Sophie was impressed with how closely that history still clung to it. She was so enamored that she did not completely notice the many  _ many _ pairs of eyes roaming over them. 

“My God!” A voice broke through the crowd that had collected, already beginning to sample the wine. They both stiffened, Fabien’s hand tightening over his cane, and Sophie, slightly horrified if only on his behalf, watched as a paunchy old man pushed forward, an enormous grin on his face. 

“My God,” he exclaimed again with a laugh, staring at them in disbelief. Fabien cleared his throat loudly, eyes darting about the room at all the expectant and curious faces. The man’s hands went out and he grasped Fabien’s shoulders, allowing Sophie only enough time to draw slightly away so that they could clasp hands. 

“It is you, Marchal,” the man bubbled, still laughing. Fabien gave a grimace, bowing his head forward. “I received your acceptance but I could not say I believed you would appear!”

“Raspail,” he said softly, raising his face once more to the man. Sophie watched, fascinated, as Raspail, their host, clapped Fabien once more on the shoulder with bone rattling force, chuckling. 

“You old hermit,” he muttered, wagging his finger accusingly. “You know, I’ve been bet I couldn’t lure you down from that hilltop of yours and I told them the day would come when you would join us. You’ve won me a handsome sum of money, my friend.” 

Fabien blanched again, and Sophie was taken aback as he looked to her, his face pleading.

Without a word she aligned herself with the two men more, being sure to round her shoulders more and elongate her neck in preparation for their greeting. 

Raspail’s wine-ruddied face turned to her and in an instant Fabien was abandoned, his hands busily smoothing down the front of his shirt and coat. 

“Who is this absolutely divine creature,” he said, eyes dancing over every inch of Sophie.  

“My companion,” Fabien said carefully, the word sounding a bit strange. “Mademoiselle Sophie de Clermont.”

She curtsied. 

“Pierro Raspail,  _ Marquis de Roux _ ,” he said, bowing extravagantly and then looking to Fabien, confounded. “Marchal, have you been hiding this angel from us all this time? No wonder you were so hesitant!”

“I arrived only a few months ago,” Sophie said sweetly, sailing smoothly over the implication and catching a glimpse of Fabien’s rather stricken face. “Unfortunately at that time the social season was over - or I would have been so glad to make an appearance.”

Raspail nodded up and down, smiling from ear to ear, clearly smitten.  

“Well, we will certainly make up for it tonight,” he ensured her. “I want you to feel  _ most _ welcome,” he finished, flashing her a winking smile. A woman called for him, perhaps his wife, Sophie wondered, and he excused himself,  walking back into the murmuring crowd.

Sophie looked at Fabien who seemed to have aged ten years in a span of seconds. She reached out, straightening his jacket slightly where it had moved out of place. 

“He’s quite colorful,” she said, glancing up at him through her lashes. There was something funny about how stiff he was as she fixed his sleeve.

He caught her wrist, holding it in place. 

“Don’t get carried away,” he said, looking plaintively into her eyes. Sophie would have expected his expression to be reproachful, but instead it was nervous and a bit displaced - he was asking more for his own sake than hers.

"I won't," she said,  tilting her head, tugging at his jabot now and then slipping her hand free from his grip. Fabien’s eyes strayed over her shoulder, and Sophie turned to see a cluster of people watching them, waiting to introduce themselves. 

A bold older woman slid forward, two beautiful twin girls following behind her in swaths of lavender. 

“Monsieur Marchal. Madame Aubanel,  _ Baroness de Pumier _ . I’ve heard much about you.”

“Baroness,” Fabien said, robotically taking her hand which she held and touching his mouth to it. The Baroness preened, turning to Sophie with a prissy smile. 

“Mademoiselle de Clermont… a pleasure.”

Sophie curtsied, smiling at the teenage girls huddled behind who must have been their mother. The baroness turned, gesturing to them, the two stepping forward in perfect synchronicity. 

“My daughters,” she cooed. “Clio and Dido.” The girls curtsied, their dark eyes looking in wonder on Sophie’s gown, at her hair and jewels. One of them strayed to Fabien, reviewing him with interest. 

“What interesting names,” Sophie commented. 

“Greek,” the Baroness said, a tautness to her mellow voice. “My late husband had a profound fondness for mythology. My eldest son is Hercule, over there, speaking to Captain Delémance.” 

She pointed out a tall young man with long brown hair chatting animatedly with a man roughly the same age, both in what Sophie assumed to be full Naval uniform. In truth, it was difficult to tell who she was referring to, as they were extremely similar in their dress and appearance.

Sensing their attention, both men paused their conversation, looking over. Sophie caught the eyes of both and seeing them fully could now see that one was far more handsome than the other, and he favored the Baroness plainly in features. He certainly lived up to his name, his hair a bit more golden than she originally saw, and his build firm. 

“He has been in Toulon?” Fabien said, stilted, and Sophie broke her eyes away, remembering why she was there. 

“He has,” the Baroness simpered, fanning herself. “He arrived last week. I am glad to have him back with me.”

“Certainly,” Fabien said and the Baroness’ brow twitched and she coughed. 

“I’ve been across the Channel,” Sophie injected, bolstering the withering conversation with pleasantry. “I cannot imagine being on a ship for so long.”

“He says it takes a strong stomach,” the Baroness smiled at her, but Sophie could tell there was more to her than her pleasantry. “You will have to hear some of his stories. They’re terrifying.”

“He’s seen a sea serpent,” one of the twins spoke, the other giving her a fish-eyed look. 

“He  _ says _ ,” she jabbed and the Baroness smiled on before she wheeled on the two, silencing them with the sort of glare only a mother could produce.

“Pardon them,” she explained, remembering Sophie. "They do not regularly get to attend parties due to their manners - but seeing as it is Epiphany...”

Sophie forced a light, forgiving, laugh, wishing she was holding something to busy her hands. She could see that it was true: there were children skipping around, more than she would usually see. 

“I remember such parties,” she said, seeing a boy toddle between the skirts and legs of the grown men and women. “It was always very exciting to see who would kiss who, don’t you think?” 

She turned to Fabien who was silent as a grave. 

“Not particularly,” he said, before catching himself saying it, mostly from seeing the infinite amusement on Sophie’s face. 

He did not like when she had the upper hand.

“Monsieur is so honest,” the Baroness tittered. “Perhaps you might have some wine and become more spirited.”

“A...good idea,” Fabien said, and if Sophie wondered if the others could sense the way he took hold of the excuse to exit the conversation. “Pardon us.” 

He took Sophie’s arm in his hand, halfway through her curtsy, pulling her with him in a way which forced her to grab his arm back clumsily. 

“You cannot simply walk away from people without properly excusing yourself,” she scolded, fighting back a laugh. 

Fabien said nothing, making a beeline for a servant holding a tray. He reached for a glass, taking a long drink. 

“The Baroness,” Sophie continued, delicately taking her own glass. “Do you know her?”

“No,” Fabien said, seeming winded. He wiped his mouth on his hand and Sophie shut her eyes briefly out of disgust. “I have heard of her.” 

“She’s rather presumptuous,” Sophie spoke, sipping. 

“She’s a widow,” Fabien reminded her, looking around him like a nervous animal.

“That explains it, then,” Sophie smiled, watching him over the crystal rim. 

“I hate this,” Fabien said darkly, now looking out one of the large windows in the room. “These… people.” 

“They are not all bad,” Sophie assured him, and he finally looked to her again. She gently took his hand and brought his cup towards her, tipping a bit more wine into it from her own glass in a generous gesture. “You must forget that you’ve spent so much time watching them.”

“It’s a matter of principle,” he muttered, taking another drink. 

“If you cannot stand them, then simply watch me,” he heard her say, and Fabien slowly took the glass from his lips.

“I am not letting you out of my sight,” he said, entirely sincere. 


	10. huit

viii

 

 

*

 

Fabien’s knee knocked against the top of the table as Raspail’s son managed to put his full weight on his good foot, rattling a bit of the cutlery. Ugène, as they came to learn, was the Bishop-elect of the party by merit of being five years old and enthusiastic, and apparently nothing else.

His position was held only in name now, for the paper hat and mantle he’d been given was shed somewhere amidst his crawling to and fro under the table, swept away by some servant before it was trampled into destruction and shuttled out of sight.

Some of his elder siblings and cousins looked on in jealousy, but most in boredom. A few of the older girls appeared to be torn between feigned interest in the baby to please their mothers and gratuitous adolescent disgust, certainly remembering when it had been _their_ turn, and all that affection was facing them and not the bratty little boy who now had license to pull on their hair at liberty.

Before supper Raspail took his son on a tour, ,carrying him on his shoulders and passing him about like a toy to anyone who would stand still long enough to hold him. Once in their arms,  he issued his blessings - a kiss, or a pinch, or some strange order from his small mouth. Thankfully, Fabien’s limp was enough excuse to keep Raspail from dumping the child onto him.

He was not exactly impressed by the child’s behavior, or his parent’s ease with him, but he relented a chuckle when the toddler gave the sign of the cross over several drunk old men who kissed his fingers in supplicance if not for how ridiculous it was.

The boy was even sporting rings on his fingers to further the act, and there appeared to be a separate game at play between the partygoers of who could part with their most expensive and grand jewels  at risk of them being lost forever for the sake of the foolishness, his little neck and shoulders weighed with loops of pearls, his front dangling with brooches like a chest of medals.

It wasn’t that he despised children, though that was easily imagined. In fact, he found them, now, in this twilight he was cast in, these more solemn chapters of his life, to be some of only remaining proof of God’s love if there ever was any. Some children, to the world’s credit, were given a life that matched their innocence - undisturbed, with tendency towards happiness and affection from their parents and relatives.

It was better for children to be brought into the world with at least a picture of desire to love them. He’d have found himself at a loss on how to execute fatherhood, perhaps, giving some woman the misfortune of bearing his own  - but it was, in some ways, a product of his nature and his manhood to speculate. _Be fruitful, and multiply_ ,  thus saith the Lord. Or something to that effect.

He wouldn’t mind a child, he reasoned. There would be effort on his part to keep it suitably comfortable; he certainly would not have hated it. A hated child became a troubled citizen and he knew _enough_ of those.

He broke his thoughts away from the cherubic little boy, eyes straying to Raspail’s wife, full bosomed, and as red faced and cheerful as her husband. She laughed with her lady friends down the table where they’d been herded into sitting for dinner, teasing out stories of her older children and the mischief and commotion _they_ caused in all the years past.

_Oh, and then Hugo went up under her skirt completely the little devil and her chair nearly fell - do you remember? Had Soler, may he rest in peace, not been there to  grab it she and the wine would have gone absolutely everywhere -_

The Hugo in question was a lad no more than fifteen situated to Fabien’s left, a few chairs down, who was far more busy ogling the necklines of those around him and slinging pieces of meat at his sisters.

 

Fabien closed his eyes in meditative silence to shut it out but it was difficult to when one was so used to keeping one ear open, filtering through the prattle.

It certainly didn’t stop the the wormy refrain being uttered: it _is_ Epiphany. One was to expect a bit of topsy-turvy. The _bon esprit_ that Sophie had so delicately reminded him of.

Dreadful.

Fabien would have preferred to be hanged right there from the chandelier, his feet twitching over the goose on its handsome silver platter, than suffer through another impromptu carol.

He took another swallow of wine, mellow and too-sweet for supper in _his_ opinion, especially with so much pudding on the table. He had to give credit to Raspail - it was a feast for one’s senses. He was still unfamiliar being seated  at all, let alone at tables so sumptuously laden with food of every description, though he was aware that many dishes were of a more _local_ flavor - nothing was to be wasted, either.

At the palace the Christmas season was marked by piety and - at least outwardly - sobriety. Characteristics that were extreme in  their own right. Fabien considered himself devoted, but could not see how _three_ Masses in one day made more difference than _one_. The thought was just for the sake of efficiency. Then again, who was he to understand the mysteries and workings of the Lord. Epiphany was a more subdued affair for the King’s immediate circles; this did not prevent his brother or the Chevalier from throwing a fling for their more hedonistic friends, but Fabien was never invited to such occasions.

His typical involvement was securing a good meal for his men - well measured portions of ale and wine and fruit  - and he would eat with them, reminding them just _who_ buttered the bread, but he did not remain for any of the inevitable gambling or sport, though he was happier to have them celebrating under his nose than evacuating off to some brothel, anyway.

It usually ended with the making of a piled-high plate and leaving the rest to the raucous laughter echoing in the dungeons. Even the detained observed their holidays, much to his satisfaction, and things generally continued into the night without a fuss and long after he dozed off in front of his fireplace  or let a book fall in his lap, head nodded on his chest.

 _This_ night was never going to see its end.

Beside him, Sophie was deeply entrenched in the conversation - most which saw her as their focus. Fabien dreaded and expected that much; she was new, giving off a glitter that the other less comely girls did not. He met each leering eye warily, calculating what he could as far as men’s _intentions_ towards her. Most of it was clear.

She was so consumed  and excited that she had neglected to eat, her still full plate now growing cold. His eyes narrowed. It was not good for her stamina if she honestly intended on dancing the night away. As though sensing his eyes she turned to him, grinning on the end of a laugh, and he meant to point it out ot her - that she should eat - but before he could there was an uproar that tugged all their attention to it.

“Oh,” Sophie cried, clapping as the servants brought in the _Galette de Roi_. The top was affixed with the fantastically constructed model of a ship and everyone looked across from him where the Captain and Aubanel were leaned back from the table, the latter who was laughing in delight at the honor.

“Make sure there’s an _extra_ piece for _Mademoiselle Beumont_ ,” someone called and Raspail raised his eyebrows indignantly.

“There is always an extra piece,” he replied, hands on his thick waist, and the person who had spoken was quick  to explain.

“Oh yes, but an _extra extra_ piece,” they amended and the room erupted in laughter that Fabien could not share. Discarding the injoke, he watched with dismay as the servants began to disassemble the massive cake, cutting it into portions for each guest - the little boy clamored under the table, knowing that it was his turn to call out who would get what and when in attempts to make finding the _fève_ equal.

It was a game Fabien had not played since he was probably no older than Ugène, and only once to his memory, at a table much smaller than this one, with relatives who were long dead. At that time he was too afraid of swallowing something as big as a bean to eat his own piece.

“Well, let’s have it,”The Master Aubanel said suddenly to the small audience in his immediate vicinity, beating his palm once on the table top. He looked slyly around, meeting Fabien’s eyes with no trace of embarrassment. He held them for a second, then looked to Sophie with what Fabien deemed as a _healthy_ amount of courage.

Young men were insufferable, no matter their class.

“ _Who_ do we predict shall be our sovereign this most wonderful season,” he finished, eyes still fixed on Sophie who appeared pensive, weighing the question sincerely. He folded his hands under his chin, regarding her.

“Surely the _Mademoiselle de Clermont_ ,” Delémance’s silvery voice sounded. He was a tall, lean fellow, with a decent amount of brown hair which  Fabien suspected was a wig, making it longer and more luxurious than his younger counterparts, though he was not nearly as good looking and this attempted to make up for it.

He wore his hat cocked across his head at a playful angle, the brim hanging down in his face indulgently, though Fabien knew he was sober. He had not touched more than a glass of wine during the evening, nursing the same cup slowly while others downed their own with vigor, his eyes sharp and face serene. He had a cool, salty, and considerate demeanor, and he smirked more than smiled, his mouth winding over his scarred chin.

“Oh yes, I do think that as well, cousin,” Aubanel resolved, nodding sagely.

“What makes you say?” she asked, smiling at them.

“Hercule and Theo are far too good at this,” one of the twins said, seated on Sophie’s other side. “I believe they rig the game…,” she took a messy drink, win dribbling on a corner of her ribbon.

“Last year they predicted _Madame Debonhere_ ,” the other completed, around a mouthful of raisin bread.

Sophie giggled in response. Though the girls were not as pretty, nor as clever, Sophie befriended them eagerly, their heads ducking together at supper mulitple times to whisper and conspire. Sophie would raise her head and report to Fabien, of course, what she heard about who was who and so-and-so.

“Nonsense,” Hercule said slickly, not pulling his eyes from Sophie, ignoring his sister’s sneering.

“You have beginner’s luck,” Delémance finally answered, brushing hair out of his forehead with a flourish and then letting it fall back. Someone might have speculated a parallel between he and the _Chevalier de Lorraine_ , but there was something far too hawkish about him for that to prove true. The Chevalier acted on some sort of preposterous accident of nature - tripping in and out of things flagrantly.

Delémance was not such a creature. He was also, as Fabien could tell, an ugly man who took great strides to improve upon it.

“Well, if _that_ is the case, wouldn’t _Monsieur Marchal_ be a favorable bet for King?” the first twin said, indignant, and Fabien felt all eyes move to him.

“Hmm,” Delémance purred, stroking his chin thoughtfully, looking sideways at his cousin who had also leaned forward. “I’m afraid my clairvoyance does not extend to the Monsieur,” his eyes closed as he raised his hand up in surrender, a ring falling heavily on his knuckle. “He is surrounded by clouds and mist - I cannot vouch.”

“Monsieur Marchal would be a good King, I believe,” Sophie said, though Fabien didn’t miss the gleam in her brown eyes as she bestowed the compliment. “He has spent the most time among royalty, so he would be best acquainted with the job for his experience.”

Fabien said nothing for a moment before raising his his hand to his mouth to pet at his moustache.

“The Mademoiselle exaggerates my station,” he simply said, picking up his own wine glass to make do for his nerves. “I would not do kindly in such a position.”

“That is true,” Sophie agreed. “You certainly wouldn’t be _kindly_ . You would tax for smiling, laughing, _absolutely_ no cavorting…” She counted off on her slim fingers.

Fabien frowned, setting the glass down heavily and reaching for a piece of fruit, pushing aside a lemon to select an orange. He took a knife to open it, frowning deeper as it bit into the rind - were he allowed he’d sooner pull his dagger from his boot as it was far better equipped for the task.

After a moment he finally succeeded, tearing the fruit from the skin, picking at the white waxy strings left behind. As he discarded them on his plate he felt Sophie pluck the wedge from his hand, looking up just in time to see her pop into her mouth, which she quickly covered with her hand, eyes widening at him, guessing what he might do next.

Despite the delighted laughter such a joke sparked - even Delémance, the eel, hid a snicker in the back of his hand - Fabien found her eyes did not stray from him, her tender smile proving that she did not mean to harm him too badly. He made no extra move just to spite her, instead playing that he had not even noticed.

“Well,” Hercule sighed elaborately when the game was abandoned to their disappointment. “I supposed we shall simply have to wait and pray for deliverance.” He snapped his fingers and a servant appeared at his side. “More wine,” he said, pointing first at his own cup and then at Sophie’s which Fabien and everyone could see was nowhere near empty.

The servant sloshed wine into it anyway, as commanded, and Fabien chewed his orange, teeth working around a seed.

“Monsieur,” the twin from before, said with a curious tinge to her voice. She said it specifically to him, looking across Sophie as though she were invisible. “Is it very true that you killed enemies of the crown?”

Fabien swallowed and Hercule once again looked at him.  
  
“It would have been a job done poorly had I not,” he said.  
  
“That’s a way to put it,” Hercule said, and Fabien glanced at him in the low candle light. “We, as military men, have also seen our fair share of combat.”

“I’m sure we have both killed several Spaniards,” was all Fabien’s reply.

“Monsieur’s work was very covert,” Sophie said, making herself once again known. “I’m surprised he’s confirmed so much,” she continued.

“His reputation of loyalty precedes,” Delémance said. “Is that how you sustained your injury, Monsieur? As Spymaster? I will admit, there are several quite interesting rumors floating around. Something, something, falling off a horse. To that end...” He twirled his wrist to illustrate the point.

“I would take you up with the man responsible,” Fabien said. “But, he is disposed and unavailable for comment.”

“You mean he’s dead?”

“ _Yes,_ Clio,” Hercule said, turning to her. She blinked at him. “Was it not you who posed the original question - ?”

“Here!”

The conversation came to a halt and everyone looked to Sophie who made a small sound of delight, staring at her lap.

“Here, here! Her!” Ugène was back, having crawled to where Sophie was, his little head popped out from the table to point at her. On command, a servant brought a a plate to Sophie, setting it down on the table before her.

“Oh, _merci_ ,” Sophie smiled, canting a bit to stare down at the little boy who hadn’t dispelled yet. Ugène looked up at her and then at Fabien,his eyes wide as the saucer that Sophie’s cake was on.

“Ugène,” Delémance tutted, and there was a slight yelp from the boy as the man’s boot found him under the table to deliver a light prodding. “You shouldn’t interrupt adults.”

Ugène ignored him, positioning herself on the floor next to her chair like a little dog, out of his reach.

“Are you enjoying the party?” Sophie asked, bending a little and tilting her head when she sensed that the boy was not going to be withdrawing back to his duties any time soon. “Everyone is very happy to see you, aren’t they?”

The baby nodded, chewing on his finger shyly.    
  
“Have you made anyone kiss?” she said, her tongue between her teeth.  
  
“Mama and Papa,” he replied. “I _married_ them...”

“Did you?” she laughed. “I’m sure they appreciated it very much.”

“Will you kiss me?” Ugène asked, pointing at his mouth, and one twin laughed while the other cooed, Fabien watching as Sophie beckoned him close with her crooked finger. Ugène sat up, clutching at her skirt, so she could bend and touch her lips to his soft cheek not once, but twice.

Ugène giggled and took a few steps back, chewing his lip now and laughing.

“Who is that?” he asked, turning over his shoulder, pointing at Fabien vaguely.

“That is _Monsieur Marchal_ ,” Sophie explained.

“Kiss him!” the boy giggled. There was an abrupt silence and Sophie gave a nervous laugh. “Kiss him!” the boy said again, emphatically, and Fabien felt the boy’s finger prod against his shoulder.

“Oh,” Sophie laughed, looking at him dizzily. “Oh - well…”

“I’m _Bishop_ ,” Ugène said, leaning into her, his little arms pushing onto her lap and she did her best to collect him, holding his little hands in her own. He looked over his shoulder at Fabien once more, grinning. “See my jewelry?”

He hung his little wrist out, clanking with bracelets. “You _must_ do as I say -,”

Fabien felt his eyes lock with Sophie’s for one breathless moment and her eyes were...he couldn’t entirely say. He could feel Hercule prickling and the twins turned to each other, whispering inaudibly.  
  
“Would you like,” Sophie said, taking the boy’s little face in her hand again. “If I gave you _my_ bracelet?”

She spun it on her wrist and he looked at it for a moment, pulling it towards him appraisingly.

“Now,  now,” Delémance interjected and Fabien felt his grip tighten just at the sound of his voice. “That isn’t fair, is it? It’s Epiphany.”

He looked at Fabien with a smile that was far too knowing and made his heart beat once, hard, in his chest.

“Come now, _Monsieur,_ would you really waste the opportunity to kiss her? She is your _friend_ , and tis the season - I wouldn’t imagine you to be _uncharitable_.”

“Yes,” Hercule said said, taking a large drink and staring at Fabien over the rim. “All in good fun! And Gene is so discerning, so I would save Mademoiselle’s bracelet at least.”

Ugène, who was still halfway strewn across Sophie’s lap looked between them, fiddling absently with Sophie’s wrist.

“I suppose it is only a game,” Sophie said quickly, and Fabien snapped his eyes to her. Her eyes were pleading with him not to press the issue. “And if I become Queen I will get you back !” She looked to Hercule and he smirked. “I will certainly pair you off with the ugliest one here…”

“How cruel,” he simpered, before Fabien cleared his throat and raised his napkin to his mouth, dabbing gently.  
  
Without another word he turned to Sophie in a business like manner, his arm moving behind her across the back of her chair. He turned his head, leaning in, seeing the last glimpse of Ugène’s little face looking up at them in, and then touched his mouth to hers.

He leaned back a moment later as though it had not happened at all, and Sophie suddenly laughed, her hand automatically flying to her lips. “Run along, now,” she said to the baby, who slid down off her lap to a heap on the floor, laughing again, before he prowled back under the table.

“I hope everyone is satisfied,” she managed to say, recovering.

“Watching cannot be half as satisfying as being the one doing the kissing,” Hercule said pointedly, and Sophie blushed. “Monsieur Marchal is truly so _lucky_.”

“Yes, some of us really are smiled upon by fate,” Delémance added.

Fabien began cutting himself a particularly large piece of pork..

 

* * *

 

“You’re a fine dancer, Mademoiselle,” Sophie felt Hercule’s mouth move closer to her head as she turned. She could hear the clear surprise in his voice, and brushed it off.

“Thank you,” she managed to say, attempting to recover her senses and be present and focused on the handsome young man showing her so much attention. After supper it had been very easy enough to steer her towards the floor, and she had let him, not needing much insistence.

The quicker she distanced herself from Fabien, the more easily she would be able to forget what had transpired, and the night could go on just as merrily as she wanted.

The music continued in her favor, and her body automatically stepped in time, giving her ample opportunity to study Hercule as he passed, the rest of the party a water-color splash of faces.

It was clearer now that his eyes possessed the same gold honeycomb sheen as his hair when the light caught it and he had a sweet dimple in his chin. She sensed his deepening interest in her,  and understood that it was perhaps borne out of a bit of jealous, but she was eager to accept it for now. Her heart skipped at the nature of it. She did not know what it was - perhaps the countryside - but she did found his social ease disconcerting when compared to the other young men she had met in her time. Sophie knew enough of and enough _about_ about princes to know that it was not a princely charm he possessed despite the instinct to name it as such.

It was what she had, fervently, believed she wanted to see: the reflections of her first loves, builders and boys, in his playful eyes. It was in her character; she’d always been the kind to fall for it when they were a bit forward, or more clumsy with their desires. She liked knowing they wanted her and it made them silly.

Conniving men were the real dangers, laying their words around like traps.  

They turned again, and no matter how she tried, her eyes strayed. She cursed the distraction, but it could not be helped. She’d always invited his eyes upon her, and she was much used to plucking him out of a crowd even if she hadn’t. There were too many times they exchanged looks as loaded as a pistol across rooms resembling the one they were in. Signs and signals that could be read easily with only a glance or a turn of the head or a quirk of the mouth.

Her body felt slow, and sluggish, the time passing at a funny rate. _I must be drunk already_ , she thought, turning again and again, trying to find where Fabien should be sitting impassively on the sidelines, watching it all. She kept scanning, trying to catch the imperceptible tap of his index finger on the top of his cane in time with the music, or the sight of someone walking by to acknowledge him before moving along.

He’d moved from the table,  and - there - she saw him, folded into a circle of men, looking blankly between them or giving an expression like he had a terrible knot in his back. She nearly laughed at it, her eyes drifting to his mouth and then back up again, feeling herself smile.

He caught her eye.

“Shall we have another?” Hercule smiled, his face coming back into the window of her view. She blinked at him, realizing that they had come to a stop as the music moved into another mode. His hand slipped easily to the back of her arm, trailing down it without hesitation.

“I think I have exerted myself  -,” Sophie heard herself say, feeling very out of breath, and Hercule’s smile deepened.

“Then we should find a place and rest for a moment,” he said brightly. “I know -,”

He took her arm in his hand to lead her off of the floor, stopping them just outside of the customary ring of swaying spectators.

“You will like this,” he said in a saccharine, doting voice, flashing another smile at her. Sophie watched his hand come up and touch a straying strand of her hair gently. He chuckled to himself at something, and then withdrew, tugging on her wrist instead.

Sophie swallowed nervously, feeling still as though her heart was thudding out of her skin. She touched her stomacher, taking a few encouraging breaths as he pulled her to the back of the room. _Fool_ , she thought _drinking as quickly as you have -_

“Are you certain we are allowed,” Sophie asked, feeling the urge to whisper as they slipped behind a door and into a darkened corridor. She felt Hercule’s hand tighten around her wrist as he led her on, smiling ruefully over his shoulder.

“I know this house like the back of my hand,” he said, which did not entirely put Sophie at ease. He seemed to sense her hesitance and slowed his walk a little. “I spent a great deal of time here when I was a boy,” he explained. “Raspail was my father’s closest friend, and when he died I depended upon him as my godfather...”

“Oh,” Sophie marveled, nodding. “How kind of him.”

“He is a good man,” Hercule affirmed, flashing another dashing smile at her. His hair was a bit sloppy now from their dancing, the strands framing his face and his strong chin and she wondered how she appeared, gathering her skirts up a bit more to make the walk easier.

“Ah yes,” Hercule said, stopping them shortly before another pair of doors. He winked at her, testing the handle and pushing his shoulder in to open it. “This room…”

He had the look of a boy who had done something quite clever, and Sophie grimaced unsurely at him. She did not feel at ease leaving the room, but she did not find herself in a place to protest, either. Since dinner had ended Fabien had not said more than one or two more words to her at best, perfectly happy to concede with Hercule’s insistent invitations to dance, and he had let them be.

It made sense - he did not want to appear too possessive of her. The kiss was only a game. There was no other attitude to impress.

Sophie tumbled in after, noting that Hercule left the door ajar which may have been a gesture of no unsavory intentions - a closed door usually signaled that he had very specific things to _show her_ as he had put. That, or, as she was quickly discovering, Hercule was not so suave. The effect of a rough sailing occupation, she thought.

The room itself, when her eyes adjusted to the dimness, was some form of study with furniture pushed about - a few desks and cabinets mostly. Hercule dropped her hand nearly immediately, going straight for a desk pushed against a far wall where he began searching about, pulling out the long drawer in the center with a bit of jiggling.

“I believe it’s still in here,” he muttered, clumsily stepping back to accommodate. “Ah -,” he withdrew a tarnished tinderbox, putting it on the table and lighting a matchstick for the dusty candelabra centered on the table. With the light Sophie could now see that the walls of the room were crowded with small dusty portraits, obvious depictions of the Marquis’ ancestors and notable figures. She could not fathom having so many family members deemed worthy of remembrance - she had not ever been in one place long enough to consider having a rendering ever done of her. There was no reason for and and nowhere to put such things.

“Here,” Hercule said brightly. He had produced a leather case, and from it a spread of pages that he arranged across the desk top, bringing the lamp closer so to see them better. “Come look!”

Sophie went to his side, peering down at the assortment and her head tilted in surprise.

“Raspail sponsored my trip to Italy before I entered the Naval Academy - I gave these all to him as my thanks,” Hercule boasted, fanning a few of them out. They were significant, and Sophie was dared to be truly impressed by them, a pleasant surprise. Drawing had never been a strong suit of her own - the most she could do was mentally map her embroidery, or trace a bit of it lightly where she could. Hercule’s talent was very realized, and she felt a little sad for him that his gifts were closeted away. It was hard to tell if Hercule was aware enough to even think about something like that, however.

“These are incredible,” she said, regardless, automatically reaching to pick one up - a Roman facade. “And you did them yourself?”  
  
“Guilty,” he chuckled, hand on heart, the other sifting through them. “These - these were tremendous…” he murmured, selecting a few to show her. “Florence was… beyond description.”

“Why didn’t you remain there? You could have become a master,” Sophie said sincerely, taking the pictures that Hercule handed her.  
  
“My father would have enjoyed that,” Hercule smiled, looking down at his works. “But my dear mother would disown me, I’m afraid. She finds Italians to be vulgar.” He wrinkled his nose.

“I always found them to be quite interesting,” Sophie commented, still scanning the sketches. They were copies of great works, ones she had had only heard about and only dreamed of seeing, but she had glanced at the drawings passed through the salons before. Those were not done with with such a youthful fervor, and she had  not been allowed to gaze at them so long and so closely.

“Art? Or Italians,” Hercule asked, laughing.

“Italians,” Sophie murmured, eyes straying to a particular work she had not seen before. The rough outline of a man holding a woman in his arms. She could see the way her hands stretched heavenward, while the man’s fingers wrapped around her waist and the curve of her thigh, his embrace unyielding and strong.

“Have you met many?”

She had only met a few Italians, she could have explained, and there were the notorious _Mazarinettes_ of whom everyone knew and spoke of - some with disgust and others with reverence to the muses, portraits passed around tables. Sophie recalled their descriptions and thought they seemed intriguing, but perhaps this was because she felt a kinship with their appearance - thin and long-limbed with darker complexions and just slightly outside of the circle.

“I’m afraid I do not know very much about you yet, Mademoiselle, so forgive me if I offend,” Hercule said kindly when she did not answer right away. “From where did you come before living with the _Comte_?”

She was aware that he stepped closer to her, but she could not take her eyes off of the rendering of the man’s hand on the plush give of the girl’s thigh, and the slight bending of her soft waist, the inextricable tenderness tangled in the urgency and anxiety.

“I,” she began, still drawn to the images, the faint expressions on their faces not totally realized, the elegance of the woman’s limbs and the strength of the man. “I - I knew him in Paris, Monsieur…” she was at least cognizant enough to remember that she should not tell Hercule the entire truth.

“This one drove me to distraction as well,” Hercule continued. “The Rape of Proserpina - Pluto and his bride, you see,” he said, pointing them out.

“Pluto?”

“God of the underworld,” Hercule said, coming nearer still to bend over it with her, their shoulders brushing. “This is a sculpture by Bernini - the greatest I believe we shall see… through, I did not see the real thing. This is merely a copy of a copy, as it were,” he flashed her a smile and she tried to meet it.

“ _Bernini_ ,” she said, remembering the name, the similarity in the feeling she had looking upon the picture. “I believe, Monsieur told me, that His Majesty commissioned a bust of himself - perhaps it was the same -”

“Yes!” Hercule exclaimed. “What I would not give to see it, or the other wonders of the palace,” he marveled. “How good of you to remind me - being at sea I forget all the important goings-ons. It feels much like being in another place entirely.”

“I’m not so versed in my Roman myths,” Sophie tempered, relinquishing the drawing into Hercule’s waiting hands. “Fabien knows quite a lot about history,” she added, her voice dropping. “It’s one of his favorite subjects.”

“Fabien?” Hercule’s eyebrow arced. Sophie’s mouth went very dry.

“Monsieur Marchal,” she corrected, glancing up through her lashes at him and ducking her head in embarassment.

“Well,” Hercule said, sensing his opening. “Proserpina is the Goddess of spring - daughter to the Goddess of harvests - and Pluto coveted her beauty and snatched her down to the underworld to make her his wife,” Hercule rambled, giving her a glinting smirk. “Her mother despaired, naturally, and made all the world dead and winter, so they arranged a bargain where she would come and return every six months.”

“The seasons,” Sophie said, eyes rounding. “How smart”

“I suppose it makes her Queen of the Dead,” Hercule added, and Sophie looked at the image one last time before he shuffled it back into the fold. A strange feeling fell over Sophie, and she became too aware of the cramped musty little room, and their aloneness like another entity in the corner.

“So, your mother -,” Sophie began, trying to rid herself of the odd energy. “She does not approve of these?”

“I cannot blame her entirely,” Hercule sighed. “It was a conspiracy between her and Matheo.”

“The Captain? Delémance?”  
  
“Yes, and my first cousin,” Hercule said blandly, as though he did not wish to visit the topic. “ _And_ dead set on pointing me straight into the Navy as soon as I was eligible to keep him miserable company...”

“Come now, Hercule,” there was a  chuckle from the door of the room and both of them turned at once to the intruder. “Speak of the devil and you _know_ he shall appear,” Delémance came in, long tangles of curls waving side to side with each step he made. They had not heard him creep in, nor the door easing open, and Sophie found her stomach tightening unpleasantly at the thought of how long he may have been standing there, listening to them - and _why_.

He regarded Sophie from under the brim when he arrived closer, smiling at her.

“I hope that he has not bored you with his usual tricks,” he clucked, leaning forward so that he forced himself between them, pawing at the drawings. He sifted through them like chips dumped on the table, and regarded them as such. “Hercule has a habit of trying to make his art speak for him when confronted by beauty as he usually has not anything else to say.”

Hercule said nothing in his defense, only tossed his head indignantly as his cousin pushed the sketches away from him, offended.

“How have I managed, Mademoiselle?” Delémance asked, Sophie leaning away from the desk slightly. “Have I made a proper sailor out of this _dilettante_?”

“Baptized by the sea, as it were,” Hercule grumbled before Sophie could find an answer, lost for a moment in Delémance’s hard gray eyes - unforgiving as the slate gray ocean and the cliffs she could recall. “Had your fill, _mon capitaine_?” Hercule grated.

“Never,” Delémance replied. “I am insatiable.” He picked up Sophie’s hand without a moment’s thought, and pressed a chaste kiss to the back of it, his mouth dry and lips chapped. “Did you know,” he said, still holding her hand, Sophie too stunned to do anything about it, his fingers fiddling with the bracelet tied to her wrist. “That Hercule left out the best parts of that story -,”

“Oh, you eavesdropper,” Hercule griped, turning away from the scene entirely to repair the discarded remains of his sketches, filling the room with the rustle and hard knock of him re-arranging the pages edges. Delémance inspected Sophie’s bracelet further, counting the links.

“- the Goddess Proserpina was courted by many Gods. Fair Apollo,” he said, tapping a pearl on Sophie’s bracelet and then turning it slightly around her wrist. “God of the Sun. And Mars,” he pinched another. “Brutal God of War. Even sprightly Mercury wished for her hand and her mother refused them all, for none were worthy suitors.”

Sophie stared at his fingers as they traced over the bracelet, only slightly aware of Hercule grimacing behind him.

“But dear Pluto, that most _brooding,_ patient God lusted after her the most. He was beguiled by her beauty, and her grace, and lightness, for he was confined to the earth’s core and his hideous dealings with the damned - and so as a favor to his brother Jupiter allowed him to abduct her, and deep in the earth he offered her the seeds of a pomegranate to eat - and it bound her to his side.”

“And who are you?” Hercule blurted, eyes fiercely jealous as the bore into the back of his head. He’d turned back around, face sour and petulant. “Neptune? Lord of the Ocean?”

Delémance tittered a laugh, dropping Sophie’s hand as though it were nothing, reeling on his cousin.

“You never liked to share,” he said, waving him off while Hercule scowled.

“Are you alright, Mademoiselle?” he asked, going to her again, dipping his head nearer to her, leaning one hand on the desk. “All he does is _talk_ . Imagine being trapped for ten months with that _odios_ sort of monologue...”

Sophie’s dry tongue prodded at words in her useless mouth for a moment before she was able to find them all in a rush. She extracted a pleasant smile for him to ease the worry in his stare.  
  
“Perhaps we should return,” Sophie suggested, being sure to look only at Hercule as she said it, to reinvent that he was still her favorite and she had not been swept away by his cousin’s strange performance. The candles were dimming, the room growing darker.  
  
She was beginning to feel the first tilting steps of drunkenness, the cottony and warm fullness pouring from the crown of her head into her dainty slippers, making her feel so out of sorts.

It had the way of sneaking after her and leaping all at once.

“Fabien will be looking for me,” she continued, and without realizing it she immediately turned her head to the door as though she meant to see him standing there. Delémance raised his brow.

“He’s been taken hostage by my my Aunt _,_ ” Delémance said, peering into Sophie’s dark eyes. “Likely to never escape.”

Sophie felt her her free hand clutching at her bracelet just as he had done.

“Yes, yes,” Hercule agreed, suddenly amiable again.

“The _Compte_ suggested taking the air,” Delémance offered, shrugging a shoulder.  
  
“Oh, that could be raucous,” Hercule smiled. “Yes, yes, we can play tag or blind man’s bluff.”

“Outside?” Sophie asked, considering it.

“We will lend you a mantle, Mademoiselle, and there will be plenty more wine to keep you cozy warm,” Hercule grinned. Other things would keep her warm, to be sure, if he had anything to do with it.

“It will please the children,” Delémance furthered, putting his hands behind his back sagely. “It is, after all, about them tonight, isn’t it?”

“They would be very excited,” Hercule agreed.

“What fun,” she said, testing another smile against them, knowing she was outnumbered.

 

* * *

 

A shame, Matheo thought, when it was not any of them at all. It was a decided _nobody_ this year, which could be dull dependent on how they reacted to finding the little porcelain baby baked into their portion.

Thankfully, the man was quite drunk, which could at least find the proceeding hours slightly more amusing.

He twisted a lock of his hair around his finger before brushing it over his shoulder with a slight _spring_ of the curl.

“Well?” Matheo turned to the sound of the voice, feathers still swinging in his view. He stifled a laugh.

“Dear aunt,” he said. “You look radiant.”

“Enough,”the Baroness dismissed, fanning herself. She was sweating through her garments, forehead shining as brightly as the rendered fat on the drumsticks left on the table. “I have no stomach for your teasing,” she continued, still fanning herself as though this would simply blow the rosiness from her cheeks. “It’s too hot in here,” she muttered.

“Indeed, the atmosphere is _quite_ warm,” Delémance agreed, watching his cousin continue his perverse fawning over the newcomer. The dolt at least had the sense to locate them as far away from her _most_ charming chaperone as was practical - a feat that was to be admired. The _Comte_ was a far stretch from the clod they had anticipated and Hercule, imbecile though he was, was no coward and it was working somewhat in his favor.

“I’ve noticed,” the woman said to him. “Did you uncover anything? Anything to prove that you are not entirely worthless -,”

Delémance let the insult roll over him, like the break of a wave on a prow.

“I see you are as affectionate as ever,” he smiled, his wicked expression shadowed by the ridiculous hat he wore. His aunt sneered back at him.

“It isn’t as easy as you might think,” Matheo said blandly, the affectation that usually colored his voice dropped and replaced by an irritated whisper. “I spend all my days on a ship, reeking of men and fish. Though this smells no better, it is subtler environment.”

“I don’t need your excuses,” the Baroness tittered. “Nor your complaints. It is you who put yourself where you are…”

Delémance frowned deeply.

“...had you any sense,” he tuned his ear to his aunt once more, distracted by her snapping the fan through the air. “You would have heeded my advice and married Dido, and then you would have whatever fortune you cared for. It was you who were too _eager_ as it were.”

Matheo looked at the graceless hopping of his younger cousin as she attempted to dance with one of the pimply teenagers Raspail produced.

“She’s simply too good for me,” he remarked snidely, watching her abuse the poor lad’s feet. His aunt remained silent.

Matheo slid his eyes to where the man _Marchal_ was netted in conversation with Raspail himself and several other of the older guard, but Matheo could tell _very well_ he was only paying half attention to the drivel. It was no question where his eye was drawn.

“The window of opportunity,” he said. “Is not as open as you thought,” he completed, still staring at the former Spymaster.

His aunt fumed, still fanning herself excessively, using it to hide her mouth.  
  
“What does that mean?”

“Don’t you think it strange, a man like that with a girl such as her,” he mused. “He’s got the temperment of a salamander.” _But who can remain so cold under the warmth of her charms_ , he said to himself.     
  
“Do you believe she is illegitimate,” the Baroness said, turning her head more so that no one might read her lips. “They do not look like one another.”  
  
“If she is then he has much _fatherly_ affection for her,” Delémance said, finally meeting his aunt’s eyes. She pursed her mouth.

“You should not project your perversions on others,” she snapped, and Matheo didn’t say anything in reply.  
  
“I gave the brat a franc to make them kiss,” Matheo continued. “He made no protest - and you should have seen her blush.”

He left out the part where he told Ugène that he would _let him know_ which girl it was in such a cruel manner.

His aunt’s fan came to a slow stop.

“That does not mean anything,” she whispered. “It’s only a party game.”

“Certainly,” Delémance assured her, tucking his hands behind his back. “And what a fun, familiar, game it is.”

He grinned at her lewdly.

“You must be certain… making those accusations,” she managed to retort, but her face went a bit ashen under her painted cheeks and his smile grew a little more. “There is money on the line. And favor. A friend of The King is exactly what Hercule _needs._ For now keep your eye on them. Do not let anyone know your suspicions. That is all they are. _Suspicions_ . The last thing I need is you sewing malcontent.”  
  
“Don’t fret, dear Aunt,” Delémance stopped her, not needing to hear her explain further. It was ridiculous, really, that people were always disappointed when they learned truths. He put his hand on her rounded shoulder, gripping in such a way that she winced. “I will do my best to see that Hercule gets what he so dearly deserves.”

He sought out the Marchal again in the crowd, but to his consternation he was nowhere to be found.

“Are you relations?”

Both Delémance and the Baroness nearly jumped at the low voice.

“I did not realize,” Marchal said simply, looking at them - he had slipped across the room to them without so much as a sound, and Delémance found that he nearly lost his composure as a result.  
  
“Oh, Monsieur,” The Baroness laughed awkwardly. “Yes - Captain Delémance is my nephew. He was merely comforting me, as it is very warm in this room and I was feeling slightly faint.”

“Perhaps you should take the air,” the _Compte_ suggested.

“Oh, it is much too cold for that,” the older woman replied. “I’m too old to be playing out under the stars.”

The Compte either ignored her flirtation or made effort not to let his face betray that he was _well_ aware that the window was past her prime for cavorting.

“But maybe the young ones could,” Madame Aubanel said. “I remember how invigorating it was in my girlhood - the _Mademoiselle de Clermont_ can’t be more than nineteen, can she?”

“She is twenty-one,” Fabien replied.

“My, she has such a glowing face,” the Madame said, and she looked around. “Oh, I cannot find them. She was dancing with Hercule, was she not?”

Fabien looked as well, brow furrowing when he did not see what he anticipated. His hand clenched on his cane, a brooding irritation on his features.  
  
“Oh please, allow me,” Delémance insisted when it felt as though the older man was making some rounding move in preparation of searching for his ward. “I’ll retrieve them. I have an inkling I know just where Hercule has spirited them off to.”

He touched his nose and smirked and Fabien glowered back at him.

“Children - always playing, aren’t they?” the Baroness said, turning to Fabien more fully as Delémance  stepped aside. “

“They are hardly children,” Fabien said. The Baroness smirked.

“You seem to have known the Mademoiselle for a long time. You are so comfortable with one another. Is it true Ugène made you give her a kiss?”

“I was acquainted with her mother,” Fabien said, weighing his words, watching the top of Delémance’s hat as he left.

“Really?”

Fabien slid his eyes back to her.  
  
“She died, and she was left alone. I wished to certain her safety. There were… many men... who would have been attracted to exploiting the situation.”

Fabien looked at her, and she gave him an encouraging smile. It was apparent just what she was hinting at. He stared at the woman, unblinking.

“I am certain there is no need for me to be discreet,” he began. “It is a poorly kept secret that I am heirless, and everything I have will go to her upon my demise. It is not difficult to deduce.”

The Madame Aubanel’s smile grew wider.

“Monsieur, how noble,” the woman sighed, ignoring his quip and stepping a little closer. “Then I must tell you not to worry, Hercule is someone you may trust. His heart is _very_ pure. He is, unfortunately, a romantic.”

“Here, in the country, one does not take liberties,” she continued, lofty. “I cannot imagine what debauchery you saw at the Palace. I suppose it is like a miasma, but here the air is so clean, as are our intentions.”

 _You would have quickly fit in_ , Fabien thought, watching her fan, the way she spoke, the feathered paint on her mouth where it began to blur.

“What I would _do_ if my daughters were alone there,” she scoffed. “It is so good that Mademoiselle has a man to look after her virtue.”

“Indeed,” he said, scanning for when Sophie and Hercule might emerge from somewhere. The moments ticked by, and he was trapped in the conversation. He tried to relax.  
  
It wouldn’t please Sophie to know he’d executed himself poorly with this woman. And there was nothing to worry about. It was as the woman said: they were children, at play. Besides, if she found favor with _Hercule_ it only meant that the rest would come more naturally. That was his intention all along.

“Your son,” Fabien said drolly, remembering himself and the woman visibly perked at the mention of him. When he did not say anything else the woman licked her lips, taking over.

“Hercule is of the _utmost_ character,” she said. “He has a variety of talents -,”

Fabien bit back a sigh.  


* * *

 

The garden was more of a over-sized courtyard, a neat square clasped within the walls of the house and bordered by an arcade - like the sort in an old convent. The children, as predicted, went mad for the idea of the adults following them into the dark to play,  and seeing them spill out of the house into the gardens was quite a sight.

There was a maze of hedges and lots of places to hide, which excited the little ones as Hercule and Delémance tied scarves around their eyes, staggering around to nab someone. Even the more unpleasant teenage girls risked laughing, letting the two swipe towards them while they swatted and shrieked, parceling together to keep warm and escape their clutches.

Sophie drank more wine, and wandered after them, glad the snow was not sticking so much so as to wet her slippers and the edge of her dress.

Fabien, she noted, was nowhere in sight. He had vanished from the ballroom when they returned.  He must have found a way to stay inside, or, worse, done a far better job of hiding than any of them. Either were entirely plausible.

“ _Mademoiselle_ ,” Hercule half sang, half laughed, Sophie turning to see him staggering about in search of her. He reached out, and, where he might have grabbed at air, the twins barrelled past and he snatched them both up at the same time, their voices raised in a shocked chorus.

Sophie giggled, watching him pull his blindfold up over his golden head, frowning  in disappointment at catching his sisters and not his quarry, though they seemed to distract him for the time being with whatever argument ensued.

He had not yet noticed her.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she looked around, trying to find a suitable place to duck into and rustled to another arched opening of the arcade on the other side of a still fountain, slipping into the dark passage lined with columns, her giggles echoing with her footsteps. He wouldn’t think to look there right away, perhaps going for the lanes of hedges instead.

She watched a servant slide into view, just behind a door to the house proper, and she realized she had simply gone in a bit of a circle, following the path of the Arcade around to the original end where the rest of the more sensitive partygoers were still eating and drinking behind the wall.

It was warmer in this part of the corridor, as well, especially as she drifted from the windows and arches and further into its embrace, running her hand along the cold stone as she went.

Sometime ago it had been partially enclosed, which was what shielded her now from the brunt of the frigid air she now breathed and the little flurries of snow twirling down behind the leaded windows.  It was very invigorating, especially to her wine-flushed face.

“You have not eaten at all.”  
  
Sophie jumped out of her skin, spinning to look at where Fabien was leaned within one of the window sills, silhouetted against it, his cane crookedly placed beside him. She couldn’t find the words to confront him about scaring her, as she was still catching her breath, her hands automatically flying up to her collarbone. She sagged after a second, relieved that it was him, at least, and not Hercule, or someone else.

 _Of course_ , she thought. _Without me at your side you’ve managed to find some shadow to slip into_ …

“It is probably why you are looking so tired,” he continued, peering at her through the dark with half lidded eyes and a wry smirk from his perch. “Your company does not seem to mind your fragility, however,” he mused, glancing behind her as though he expected Hercule to already be there.

When he looked back to her his expression immediately changed, darkening.

“What are you doing out here?” she finally managed to say, her weight shifting unevenly on her feet. “I looked for you and you’d _vanished_.”

“ _You_ abandoned me to that horrid woman,” he accused, irritated, before changing tactics and letting his voice filter into a more mellow tone. “She talks of… everything. And nothing. At once, if that is even possible,” he clarified, awaiting her disagreement, and Sophie gave none - she only stared at him, wobbling a little.

“What?” he said, and Sophie watched in horror as he no longer looked so consternated, his eyes softening. “You have no biting remark for me? Has he made you lose your tongue?”

He coughed a laugh into his fist and then picked up what she had not seen prior - a bottle of wine he had literally managed to smuggle from somewhere. He took an inelegant swig of it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he had the terrible habit of, still chuckling around the mouthful.

“What are _you_ doing _out here_ ?” he prompted, and a thought entered Sophie’s mind as he spoke to her that was so entirely preposterous she wished that she had not ever considered it. It was the sort of thought that wormed into one’s brain and did not ever leave - sleeping mostly, but roused now and again by the slightest movement in its direction. There was no way that he could be _jealous_.

“We are playing a game,” she said, gathering herself up, and he considered her. “And I am _hiding_ ,” she continued, looking around her for a brief moment, to be sure no one crept behind a column. “I was also looking for you,” she added. So what if it wasn’t entirely true.

“You say you do not wish to be found?” he said slowly, resting the bottle against his knee, sounding smug. “Not unlike you, I suppose...you tend to be always running from something...”

“Well, I do intend to win,” she said quickly, and his eyebrows raised, but he provided no further comment.

“I suppose,” he said, turning the neck of the bottle in his hand. “Did you enjoy your dance?”

Sophie nodded, humming and looking out the large window behind him that gazed over the grounds and gardens of the estate she’d just come from.

She had. It had been lovely to dance again, but for some reason she was not as satisfied as she thought she would be and this was most troubling.

The bare trees were lonesome, but the winter moon was full and bright in the gaps of quilted cloud-cover. She could hear the people in the garden and also still inside the warm ballroom - laughter and music ebbing in waves, punctuated only by the slosh of him taking another drink. Thrust into the quiet, she swayed slightly on her feet, absorbed by the view until she let her eyes focus on him once more.

She could see his breath, faint, and the cold entered her own lungs and mingled there. The faint light projected snowfall into square panes on the walls across from him and the flurrying blurred him in his dark clothes and she watched as he also lost himself in pause, rings clacking on the dark glass bottle in his hand.  

“Then you must have exerted yourself,” he mused, lifting his head to her, the moment expiring just as quickly as it came. “In your time your energy never waned for such _exercise_.”

She brought her hands together and shrugged her shoulders passively under the fur-trimmed mantle they gave her to hide her sudden self-consciousness. She hadn’t meant to get so caught up in her own thoughts, forgetting to answer.

“You’re right, I did not eat enough...the wine has gone all to my head.”

She touched her temple as illustration.

He peered at her a moment longer, and then looked away, back at the snow falling. Whether he believed her or not, it did not appear to to warrant any confirmation. In her heart Sophie knew she was not making the most convincing performance. She’d stood there so dumbly, staring at him, just as she was now -

“Have you finally found a man that makes you shy?” he said, eyes still trained on the window. The snow was not sticking - they would still be able to make it home at a reasonable pace.

“He’s hardly a man,” Sophie smiled, voice a bit breathy, moving her hands against one another to stave off the chill. “He wanted to show me his illustrations - he’s quite good, actually.”

“Is that what they are calling it now?” Fabien said, looking clearly for evidence of anything awry, frustrated when she didn’t betray anything but let him think what he wanted. “Illustrations.”

She glanced up, tracing the pronounced outline of his silhouette in a sudden flash of light and burst of warmth - a servant opening the door and then shutting it again, their footsteps trailing away. A wave of music washed forward with it, disintegrating like foam splashed at her feet.

They listened in silence and then Fabien barked a hoarse laugh.

“One you may recognize,” he spoke. “That ghastly minuet,” he drawled, tilting his body forward slightly. He moved the bottle of wine off of his knee, setting it beside him on the stone sill.

“Ghastly?” she said, abruptly understanding. She trained her ear on what she could hear through the walls.

Fabien began to humm it, sighing loudly when he reached the end of the melody.

“Oh, yes,” she found herself giggling a little in recognition of the plodding tune. “ _That_ one.”

It had been the favorite of the _Madame de Montespan_ and played to exhaustion on several occasions. She giggled harder at the muffled version, so sloppy and disorganized. She wondered what the Madame might have thought about such a quaint arrangement - she could clearly see her pursed mouth. In the end, she had always wished that she might have won.

“Had I suffered it one more time I might have fallen to madness,” Fabien murmured, bringing his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“That’s a bit unfair to the song,” Sophie said, ambling towards him. “A bit of wine could do that, too.”  Sophie remembered the ink-pool of Fabien in the low candlelight of Versailles, his clasped hands behind his back, eyes picking them all over. He’d shift his feet every now and again, clear his throat to no one, blink slowly, as though he was falling asleep standing up, but he  missed nothing. She only pondered where he visited, during such times, when his mind wandered.

When she was so young she’d smiled at him each time she saw him, out of habit, and because she smiled at everyone not knowing any better. In return, his eyes seemed to pass through her, as though she was not there at all. Certainly not worth the trouble to him, she was barely out of her girlhood and so utterly unremarkable he could not spare the energy to acknowledge her.

Then, as time wore on, she’d thought that perhaps it was that he was incapable of experiencing the more human joys and happinesses - he couldn’t _appreciate_ a pretty girl’s looks, let alone her kindness.

 _You certainly did not imagine yourself among us as you are now_ , she thought, seeing him glowering.

“I am not as viceless as you believe, _Mademoiselle_ ,” he replied. “Have I not played along? Let you have your foolish time?”

“You have lasted a bit longer than I expected,” she agreed. “Viceless,” she teased, rolling her eyes back to the cold gardens, the stationary topiary dusted with powdered snow. A blurred shape rushed by and then another, little shadows darting. “I believe plenty about you, but that is not among them. Your vices are simply more…” she weighed the word. “Peculiar.”

He huffed, disgruntled, as she wandered closer, peering out the same large window with him, knowing he watched from the corner of his eye.

“Books, for instance,” she listed.

“A _book_ is not a _vice_ -,” he prickled, annoyed enough to not let her continue.

“When consumed at the rate with which you consume them, I believe them to be,” Sophie tutted, lifting her chin in his direction before her severity melted into a smile. “And do not pretend you are some scholar,” she continued, holding up her finger. “I have seen those risque titles. They’re quite violent.”

“Rome was swimming in blood,” he said, smirking. He pushed back his coat with his hand so that it was resting on his hip, angling his body slightly so that he was looking down his sharp nose at her.

“How dreadful,” she wrinkled her own in distaste. “Hercule told me of far prettier myths - you should invest in those, perhaps.”

“There are no such things. You would not last a day,” he said, leaning closer to intimidate her, but the intent came across as simply childish. “Your lovely head would be rolling…” he reached out one long-fingered hand and feigned slicing it across her neck through the air.

Sophie fell into merciless giggling, hiding her mouth in her hands, eyes closing.

“I am drunk,” she marveled, hiccupping her laughter with her head tipped back slightly. “Otherwise one could be terrified of such a gesture,” she said to the end, looking swimmingly at him from her heavy eyelids. “Do not look so disappointed,” she cooed, reaching out her hand and he drew back.

“You seem impressed with yourself,” Fabien muttered, looking away for a moment and then back to her before picking up the wine.  She giggled.  
  
“I’m impressed by that as well -” she tapped the bottle’s end with her nail as he drank. “I didn't pin you for a lush, _Monsieur_ , but you are quite tolerant.”

He pulled the bottle away from his mouth, running his tongue over his teeth, picking up the little dregs of sediment.

“In my training at the _Louvre,”_ he explained.“I experienced a great deal of vile pastimes...”

 _Wine, women and fighting_ , his inner voice sounded, transporting him immediately to the filthy streets and sweat-reeking taverns. It was a dark episode, before the light of Versailles - of the sun itself - eclipsed all else. He was volatile, swinging madly at all times, because he was older and free of the fetters of the Abbey and his body seemed to be constantly coiled and ever-hungry, like one of the exotic snakes that were posted in baskets in the market, their masters seducing them out with the low tones of long strange flutes.

His comrades were just as shameless, which did not help, but the honeymoon of being young and uninhibited by newly acquired authority quickly wore off. It was easy to bear the burden of loneliness if he outstripped them in rank.

 _You’ve changed, Marchal,_ they said. He didn’t care. Let them all wake up in pig shit till the day they eventually died, poxed and feeble.  

“What is a man if he cannot overcome his weaknesses,” he finished, considering it in his deep voice. “I became all the stronger for it. And I could _think_ like a wretch, as I was one, which was an asset.”

A woman had called him that. A _wretch_. A lovely young woman, who loved him truly. He knew because there was no great status being his wife, had he asked, and she did not care for the size of his purse. She thought he had loved her - and at the time he might have believed it himself if she’d made a convincing enough argument. None such existed. Now he could not even recall her name, or the color of her eyes. He’d broken her heart as easily as he could have broken the bottle in his hand.

“Does that explanation satisfy?” he said, shocked that it was not empty yet when he weighed it in his grip. Sophie was watching him in her own sort of stupor, her skin becoming a faint mottle due to the cold, but being drunk kept one warm. It was unlike him to become like this, but what did he have to lose anymore?

The joys of _retirement..._

“Oh, very much,” she said, suddenly, giddily, before her eyes were drawn to the window. The fact that she was smiling stirred him and he was reminded that there was one thing she got wrong: his thresholds were not what they used to be - some things a man could not outsmart or undo quite so easily, and years of temperance was one of them.

“It’s so beautiful,” she sighed, watching the twirling motes of silver, only missing the stars she knew were crowded out of sight. She longed to throw open the window, let her lashes catch a few flakes and resisted the temptation to implore him to do it for her. “I love winter. Don’t you?”

“I have no preference for the season,” he said honestly, not surprising her in the least.   

They came to a pause, and so slowly, she put her hand upon his arm, on his lovely velvet sleeve, and stared up again at the same gossamer moon behind the veil of snow clouds. Her head tipped, resting on his shoulder. “You must look,” she whispered, relaying the weird secret to him. “It is so lovely and cold, and we may never have it again.”

“I am sure you will have many nights like this,” Fabien said, not drawing away from her touch, staring at the elegant extension of her neck where it swanned into her back beneath the cloak. “With far more suitable companions.”

“You should admit it,” she continued, ignoring him or having not heard all together. “Say someone were to pass - they would think we look quite beautiful right now. Like a statue.”

“You are always beautiful,” the words were only obvious fact, but for some reason when he spoke them he instantly regretted the admission. She said nothing and perhaps this was what disturbed him. It wasn’t like he lied - it was objective.

“Why must you always be contrary,” she huffed, looking at him pointedly. “You know, you are not _monstrous_ ,” she continued. “I would not refuse a dance with you.”

Fabien’s embarrassment evaporated and he regarded her with unimpressed eyes, knowing no satisfaction.

“I do not believe I will be dancing any time soon,” he said dryly.

“Sounds as though you are a-fraid,” she said, toying with him. “Did nobody teach you?”

Fabien scowled.

“I had no _time_ ,” he said, squaring his shoulders at her. “For petty indulgences.”

Sophie seemed only to become more enthusiastic by his dismissal.

“I don’t believe you,” she whispered, leaning her face close to him once more. “I might even teach you, Fabien,” she prodded, her hand falling on his arm once again. “If you wanted, I would,” she giggled.

“Fine,” Fabien said briskly, shaking his head and pulling away from  her. “Then, if you are such an _expert_ , you should prove it,” he looked around at the empty passage.

“Dance,” he said. “A _bouree_.”

She scoffed at him, laughter shaking from her the way her little dog shook water from his coat.

“It’s hardly a dance when it’s only me,” she said. “And I can barely see where I’m stepping -,”

“You considerself foremost, it should not matter,” Fabien said, waving her off. “Come, then,” he trained his ear on the faint music. “It’s a gavotte.” Another he unfortunately recognized, though several years expired in way of fashion.

“Have you lost all your sense, _Monsieur Marchal_ ,” she scolded, the sound of her referring to him by his title striking him. “The absurdity -”

“I have lost no sense,” he insisted, shrewd. “It will please me to know I did not waste any effort on the whims of a little girl.”

“So _cruel_ ,” she said, words dragging due to her current state of constitution. “You truly are so preoccupied with torturing a girl’s heart.”

He tipped the bottle of wine to her.

“For courage,” he said, in offering, and she grinned suddenly, pulling it to her and drinking for a moment, a bit splashing onto the stones. He squinted at her antics and she laughed again with her violet teeth showing.

“You sound as if I’m heading into battle, or to the block,” she chuckled, wiping her mouth as he did, but then, to perhaps both their surprise, she conceded, skirts rustling as she moved back from him. “And I’m no little girl,” she said, met with a dismissive grunt.

“There,” he pointed to the space before him. Satisfied with her position he leaned back slightly.  “He bows,” he narrated, waving his hand to move it along. He’d watched it numerous times. Foppish men bowing, and he watched her now, as well, performing her curtsy in return, wobbling just enough to make herself laugh harder.

“ _Mademoiselle_ ,” he said sternly, tapping his cane once on the stone floor.

“It’s too slow,” she whined, between bouts of giggling. “And far too quiet!”

“Perhaps if you stopped your complaints you would hear,” he said smartly and she looked up from her feet at him for a split second.  
  
“Are you my dance master, now?” she asked, then turning over her shoulder in time to speak to him. He watched her go along, this way and that, the way she counted in her head written on her face in her concentration.

“No,” he smiled to himself, watching the moonlight cast on the paleness of her limbs as they arced in the air. “Were you his favorite student?” He could not imagine otherwise. She was so dainty, even when she was obviously so drunk. His eyes strayed to her without even thinking.

“I do not know, he frightened me,” Sophie replied, hopping just in time. “He had a long switch he’d tap you with when you made an error…so I practiced often. I did not want to give him any cause-”

She tripped, the her toe catching on the uneven floor and the rush of air left her just as she felt him snag her elbow - so quickly she wouldn’t have believed it if it had not been _him_.

“Brava,” Fabien said, righting her, and she teetered a curtsy once more. She felt her face lift, searching for his in the dark and her eyes sparkled with mischief. A curl of hair had long escaped the hold of her braids and coils and combs and fell down, catching on her lip.

“No punishment, Monsieur?” she asked, staring at him.

“ _Non_ ,” Fabien said, letting the strange heaviness of her stare come over him - like a pelt draped warm and half alive - at the sound of her voice.

“Am I disheveled?” she asked, looking down at herself, smoothing her gown - his eyes were examining her more than they usually did.  The mantle had slipped off of her shoulders a little and she was nearly blue now from the cold but didn’t seem to mind.

He shook his head, the heady feeling retreating for something lighter. He pulled her mantle up over her shoulder more.

“I was imagining you as a child,” he said, and something wormed over his face.”You must have… devoted a lot of time to practice.”

“Well, yes,” she insisted, and to her immense surprise his face blossomed into a full smile - one that spread across its entirety and not only one portion. He had been attempting - badly - to keep it at bay.

“Just now...it was not very good,” he confessed. She felt her face fall into shock and then he laughed at the look she gave, or the clumsy memory of her dancing, or perhaps both at once - suddenly and loudly - bowing his head and obscuring his face from view out of shame. His shoulders shook, and she gaped at him.

“Are you _mocking_ me?” she stuttered and he said nothing, fist held to his mouth as she had seen him do before, and always at her expense, to stifle himself. “Drunkard,” she hissed.

“Pay no attention,” he coughed, finally, regaining a shred of his composure. “I am not - in the slightest - myself,” he gestured vaguely. “I myself,” he tried again,  failing, still chuckling, and she caught the glimpse - the crescent of his teeth as he smiled, grinned, despite himself, and appeared so young to her eyes that her heart beat wildly and the thrill that swept over her looking at the molten silver brightness of him - of his buttons, of the threads of his coat, of his hair, and the shadow of the snow - was so cold and inviting and numbing to her hands she again felt if she was again in the presence of some other spirit kindling with her own.

If they were only two people, coming across one another, she could not say if she would find him the way that she did. Half of the mystique seemed to be in the discovery of him - the unwinding of it all. But maybe not all of it.

Maybe, if she were only a girl, and he were only a young man the way he appeared now, with the creases of his face so much softened he could have been her age by all appearance, features lax, she would find him just as interesting and powerful.  Maybe he had always been this secret way: dark, and handsome. A close dark, an enfolding darkness, and handsome like a wizard or a fairy might be - all trickery and feathers and the winter moon like a dab of cream in his black eyes. She would be eager, she thought, to accept a dance from such a man.

The envy of her cohorts to have such shrewd attention on her.

How often she wondered _where have you even come from_ because certainly it was not _this_ world and his orphan’s upbringing was only a fable.

But maybe, this could be evidence that he didn’t simply sprout full grown out of the earth. This echo, this little disturbance of that still pool he balanced so precariously inside the cave of him. There was a beam of light richoteing around, and he dared to let her see it. To entrust her with such a thing.

“I cannot fault you,” he was saying, voice falling back to its usual cadence, but still light and rolling. “I cannot - you only do as you are told -,”

“Choice words from someone so duty bound,” she said, pretending that she was not at all impressed with him. “Not even an hour ago you kissed me to please the will of a little boy,” she said, watching his laughter stall. He lifted his head, still smiling at her, but there was a pointed fang in it now.

“Instead of what? On my own accord?” He practically purred, his hair moving over his shoulders, sleek and black.

Sophie saw him stand and straighten himself to his full height, the bottle of wine abandoned.

“I would swear you were drinking to forget it,” Sophie found herself saying, but her voice sounded far outside of her body, like she wasn’t even convinced that such a thing had happened. “I’m sure you did not enjoy it -,”

He had though - kissed her. His mouth soft and dry and firm, as all the rest of him was.

“Do you think I don’t _enjoy_ kissing a woman?” he bore down on her, the palm of his hand screwing on top of his cane.

Sophie watched her hands rest on his lapels because he was so near and she meant to say something more, that _no_ , of course not - but then she felt a rush, and her face planted firmly onto his chest, against his neck and he staggered back. She tilted her head, instinctively, pressing up into him, her eyes fluttering closed.

His arm came around her back, holding her up, and she giggled again.  
  
“How is it that you’re so strong?” she asked, and he had to pull her harder, making her squeal. “Despite it all -,” she said, and she looped her hands around his neck, peering up at him. “I’d ask you to hold me, or carry me...”

“Stand up,” she felt him say more than hear, as he bent to her ear in his exasperation, and she hummed, feeling very much that she weighed nothing at all. She could not recall the last time she’d drank so much. No, that wasn’t true, when she had first gone to the Caron’s she had found a bottle of _Genever_ and smuggled it up to her room while they were away visiting acquaintances.

She’d drunk the entire thing over two days, sipping it a little here and there between all her chores, loving and hating it in turn its burning woody taste, and strong perfume like fragrance. Lying curled alone on her bed, she wondered if she would ever return completely to her body, or simply float serenely above it, waiting for something to come and break its spell on her.

“I’m very much in possession of myself,” she said emphatically, burrowing further against his coat. It was not like that time - she was not alone now. He was there, and she could feel each breath he took, and the prickle of his beard near his collar on her cheek.

“I believe I am about to pour you into the carriage and into bed,” he replied, and she realized with swimmy understanding that they were beginning to walk, slowly, one foot after the other with his cane taking the brunt of both their weights. How he had convinced her was lost to her foggy memory and of little importance, she supposed.

“Hardly,” she contested, still trying to think more clearly, and catch hold of the night like something being tugged just out of her reach each time she attempted.

“There you are, Mademoiselle -,”

“Hercule,” she sighed dreamily, lifting her head from off of Fabien’s shoulder. “Please - inform Fabien that I have won the game -,” she cut herself off, laughing. “What’s my prize? A kiss?”

Her head was far too heavy to keep up and she closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of Fabien once more. He smelled like bedclothes and wine.  Like a pillow, or a melting candle, or her own hair. It wasn’t unpleasant; it was warm, and comforting.

There was a bit of discussion, the realization that it was _quite_ late, apparently -  so late, in fact, that there would be of course, rooms made up. There was some sort of dieliberation.

And all the fresh air and the feasting, and _she has been through much, it has exerted her -_

“You have little say in the matter,” Fabien said, and she looked around dizzily, noticing that they were outside once more now, and she could not recall what she had said to make him say such a thing.  
  
“Fabien?” she asked, stopping them for a moment, her slippers skittering on the drive. There was the valet  at her left, holding her other arm and Fabien looked down at her, his arm still around her waist. She could smell horses again.

“I know it is not your own bed,” he said lowly, and she could tell even in her haze that he was repeating himself. “But you have _little_ say in the matter for now.”

“Am I very drunk?” she asked, pitifully, tipping unevenly to one side,  and she did not miss the smallest fleeting smile he gave her, a puzzled look.  
  
“Yes...”

“Apologies,” she said, trying to straighten herself up a bit. “I’m unused to all the libation…but I do believe winter to be my favorite...it’s much easier to be warm than to try to cool off in the summer… especially when a lady must -,” she panted slightly, teetering on her heeled slipper. “- wear so much, and there is also that you are with many others in winter time to keep you company - so you do not have to find yourself very alone...

She was rambling but seemed unable to stop herself. The valet opened the carriage door and Fabien began trying to extract her from his grip.

“Wait,” he said, and she nodded before she felt the valet at her back holding her steady.

“Don’t go,” Sophie mewled pawing for him, and then she felt him take her hand, and then the other, letting her place her weight on them. The valet bent, and boosted her ankle onto the rail and she yelped in surprise.

“Do not be so rough,” Fabien barked, and there was a muted apology before he more gently pushed her up from behind. With a small clamor she was inside, landing heavily on the bench, head spinning.

“Here,” he murmured, and Sophie realized her hands were on her temples to still the pounding in her ears, and she looked around her, unsure of what exactly had transpired. “ _Here,_ ” he said again, taking her shoulders and canting her, tugging, and she found him settling her against his chest again, his arm around her shoulders.

“Wait,” she whined, lifting her head and he told her to be still. She whimpered, letting her cheek fall on his chest again. The carriage began to sway, and bump, and she squeezed her eyes tightly for a few moments until, at last, the uncanny whirling sensation subsided.

“Do you remember that girl in the fountain?” she murmured, breath tickling his skin.  

“Hmm?”

“The girl -,” she said again. “Who drowned in the fountain.”

“The niece of Minister Colbert?” Fabien asked, brow furrowing at the sudden gloomy shift in her tone. His arms remembered phantom weight of her broken doll’s body, and the patchy damp against his front, the cloying, mossy scent of filmy water.  

“The moon reminds me of her,” Sophie trailed, her voice dropping to a whisper he had to strain to hear above the wheels. She lifted her head from his  to gaze at him with her bloodshot eyes wide, but unafraid. “She was very cold. I felt her hand.”

Fabien felt her grope for his own hand and she grasped it hard, squeezing.

“She was so lovely, like a lily…,” she stared at him. “I feel as if it’s all just a story I tell myself to make it less awful… that she died, and I did not. I could have been the one floating there alone...”

Understanding drifted between them, quick as a shiver going down his back.

“She was not alone,” Fabien said, taking in the strange devastation on her features.

“I dread to be alone,” she whispered.

“You shouldn’t give so much attention to such worries,” he continued, trying to be more soothing and not coax more of her emotions. “Soon you will be in bed and forget it all.”

To his intense surprise she nodded once and then replaced her head against his chest, settling with a sigh.

There were things he wanted to say, to be more reassuring and at least end the matter, but he couldn’t locate the words while his thoughts paddled in his brain.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, lifting a limp hand to her face, and Fabien realized with horror that she was crying.

“Drunken misgivings come to us all, especially among friends. And it’s... Epiphany,” he said quickly.

“I have spoiled something,” she cried, shaking her head. “I’m - I’m...I shouldn’t - I shouldn’t be allowed to be so happy - I wish you would scold me -,”

“Enough,” he said, stilling her. “We have both seen each other at our worst, is that not fair?”

She sniffled and he took her chin in his hand, turning her face to him and wiping at her cheeks indelicately.

“No more tears,” he murmured, exhausted, his eyes closing and his own arm landing on the cushion beside her tucked up legs with a thump, his head leaning back against the bench. “I do not think I shall leave my house again,” he muttered, grunting as he lifted his bad leg and set his heel on the bench across from him with a heavy sigh.

“Fabien,” she said, abruptly, as a few minutes of silence passed.  “Do you know how to dance?”

“Of course,” he replied, but his voice was quite faint. “Not as well as Monsieur Aubunel...”

“He knocked into me more than once,” she said and Fabien did not laugh out loud but she could practically hear the smirk against his mouth.  
  
“Did he…”

“You could not have seen,” she whispered. “But he did. Three times nearly.”

“How endearing…,” Fabien continued.  

She frowned, rolling her head sleepily.

“Will I have to see him again?”

“Yes,” Fabien said and she cracked her eyes, staring listlessly across the carriage. She felt her head move each time he took a breath.

“But we will wait until the Spring,” Fabien said, an air of finality to his voice. “The winter may be long this year…”

She said nothing more, her head heavy and hot against him, falling asleep with the feeling of his thumb toying with a crease on her gown where his arm was still around her back.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pardon any typos or historical inaccuracies <3
> 
> i like to think that 21 year olds have not changed much historically, which means sophie played 17th century spin the bottle, partied with a cute boy, considered a crush, and took an uber home ;) 
> 
> (anyone who has ever been particularly wine drunk knows how it goes...)
> 
> anyway i hope y'all enjoy! i'm still here picking away at this thing, i promise xo

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to askee & alex, whose friendship inspires me always <3


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